Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (the "Terms") are a binding agreement between Vanward LLC, a Utah limited liability company ("Vanward", "we", "us"), and the company that creates an account (the "Customer", "you"). By creating an account, clicking to accept, or using the service, the person accepting confirms they have authority to bind the Customer.

The short version

This summary is a courtesy. The full terms below control if anything conflicts.

Your documents are yours. You own everything you upload and everything Vanward calculates from it. We never sell it and we never use it to train AI models.

You decide who sees what. Nothing is visible to anyone outside your company unless you create a ReadiLink for them, and you can hide items or revoke a link at any time.

Readiness scores are guidance, not advice. Vanward tells you what investors and auditors typically look for and whether your evidence is there. It is not legal, tax, accounting, or investment advice, and it is not an audit.

Pay monthly or annually, cancel any time. Fees are shown at checkout and billed in advance through Stripe. Cancel whenever you like; you keep access until the end of the period you paid for.

Be honest and keep it lawful. Upload only records you have the right to share, do not try to break or scrape the service, and use it for your own company’s business.

1. The service

Vanward provides the Readi suite, a software service through which the Customer uploads or connects business records ("Customer Data"), receives readiness assessments, scores, and close workflows calculated by Vanward ("Outputs"), and shares selected records and scores with third parties the Customer designates ("Recipients") through time-limited, revocable links ("ReadiLinks"). Which products and features are available depends on the plan the Customer subscribes to. Vanward may add, change, or retire features over time, and will give reasonable notice of changes that materially reduce the service.

Vanward is a software tool. It does not provide legal, tax, accounting, financial, or investment advice, does not audit or attest to Customer Data, and does not facilitate, broker, or take any fee on any transaction. Readiness scores, automated document checks, close sign-offs, and any verification labels reflect Vanward’s automated assessment of the records provided, or the Customer’s own confirmation, and are not a representation by Vanward about the Customer’s business to any Recipient.

2. Accounts and users

The Customer must be a company or other legal entity and each user must be at least 18 years old. Users sign in with an emailed link or a password they set; the Customer is responsible for controlling access to the email accounts it registers, for its users keeping their passwords private, and for all activity under its account. Where the plan allows additional users, the Customer is responsible for who it invites, for the role it gives them, and for removing them when their access should end. Tell us promptly at hello@vanward.ai if you believe an account has been accessed without authorization.

3. Customer Data and ownership

The Customer owns Customer Data and all Outputs derived from it. The Customer grants Vanward a limited, non-exclusive license to host, process, display, and transmit Customer Data and Outputs solely to provide and support the service, to comply with law, and as the Customer directs through ReadiLinks.

No AI training. Vanward does not use Customer Data or Outputs to train, fine-tune, or improve any machine learning or artificial intelligence model, whether Vanward’s own or a third party’s, and requires the same of the AI providers it uses to run automated document checks.

Aggregate use. Vanward may create and use statistics that are aggregated across many customers and cannot reasonably identify the Customer, any person, or any document, for example the share of companies at a given stage that have a signed cap table. Aggregate statistics never include Customer Data itself.

4. ReadiLinks and Recipients

The Customer alone decides what a ReadiLink shows, to whom, and for how long, and may hide items or revoke a link at any time. Vanward records when a ReadiLink is opened and which items are viewed, and shows that activity to the Customer. Shared views carry a visible watermark identifying the Recipient.

Recipients do not get an account, a copy of the Customer’s system of record, or access to anything the Customer has not shared. A Recipient who opens a ReadiLink agrees to use what they see only to evaluate the Customer, to keep it confidential to the extent the Customer requires, and not to copy, scrape, or republish it. A Recipient may ask the Customer for a document through the link; the Customer decides whether to provide it. Vanward is not a party to any agreement between the Customer and a Recipient, and any confidentiality obligation a Recipient owes runs to the Customer.

At the Customer’s request Vanward will email a ReadiLink to the Recipient on the Customer’s behalf, and reports back whether the message was delivered or bounced. Vanward does not track whether the email itself was opened.

Investor firms. A Recipient that is an investment firm may hold Vanward accounts for its people. When the Customer shares a ReadiLink with a firm, anyone who is a member of that firm in Vanward can open it, and the send screen says so before the Customer sends. The Customer can revoke that access at any time. The firm is responsible for keeping its own membership list current, including removing people who leave.

4A. Upload links

The Customer, and a close-team member working a close step, may send an upload link to someone without an account, such as outside counsel or an accountant, asking for specific documents. The link can write only to the items named on it, expires on the date the sender sets, 14 days by default and never more than 90, unless withdrawn sooner, and records who it was sent to and what arrived. Documents received this way are marked as waiting for confirmation and count for nothing until someone at the Customer confirms them. The Customer is responsible for sending upload links only to people it trusts with the request.

5. Connected systems

The Customer may connect third-party systems it controls, such as an accounting system or a file store, so that Vanward can read specified records into the Customer’s workspace. Connections are read-only: Vanward does not write to, alter, or delete anything in a connected system. The Customer authorizes each connection, and any user with the necessary permission may disconnect it at any time, which stops further reads.

Records read from a connected system are stored as a snapshot: the file as it was at the moment of capture, a checksum taken at capture, and a pointer back to the report it came from. Snapshots stay in the Customer’s workspace after a connection ends, because they are part of the record the Customer built. If Vanward later detects that the source has changed, it marks the snapshot and tells the Customer; it does not replace the snapshot on its own.

The Customer is responsible for having the right to connect each system and for the accuracy of what those systems contain. Use of a connected system remains governed by the Customer’s agreement with that provider.

5A. Lender reporting

Where the plan includes it, the Customer may record its lenders, the reporting obligations in its credit agreements, and what it has sent to each lender and when. The Customer may give Vanward a copy of each send by adding the company’s Vanward reporting address to the email it sends its lender; Vanward keeps the message details and the attached documents with the Customer’s record.

Vanward keeps a record and shows what is due. It does not send anything to a lender, prepare the Customer’s reporting package, calculate or certify covenant compliance, or interpret the Customer’s credit agreement. Obligations that Vanward proposes from reading an agreement are suggestions until a person at the Customer confirms each one. Meeting every obligation under a credit agreement remains the Customer’s responsibility, and Vanward is not responsible for a missed or late delivery or for any consequence under the agreement.

6. Automated checks and verification labels

When enabled, Vanward uses an AI model for four tasks, each started by the Customer’s use of the feature: checking whether an uploaded document appears to be the kind of document requested, what entity and date it shows, and whether anything obvious is missing; reading a credit agreement the Customer uploads to propose the reporting obligations and covenants it contains; checking whether a reconciliation the Customer attaches to a close step ties to the balances entered; and drafting a first version of a variance explanation from the balances and notes on a close step. Records read from a connected system are not sent to any AI model.

What the AI model returns is a proposal or a first draft. Proposed obligations are not added until a person confirms them, and a drafted explanation is marked as a draft until a person edits or confirms it.

Items that pass an automated check are labeled as verified by automated check; items the Customer confirms are labeled as founder-confirmed. These labels describe the process applied, not the truth of the document’s contents, and are shown to Recipients with the same wording. The Customer remains responsible for the accuracy and completeness of everything it uploads, connects, and shares.

7. Acceptable use

The Customer will not: upload or connect content it lacks the right to share, or that is unlawful, infringing, or contains malware; upload personal data of consumers beyond what ordinarily appears in business records; attempt to access another customer’s data, probe or overload the service, or reverse engineer it; use the service to build a competing product; share ReadiLinks with anyone the Customer is not entitled to disclose the underlying records to; or resell access. Vanward may suspend an account that materially breaches this section, giving notice where practical.

8. Fees, billing, and cancellation

Fees, billing period, and any included limits are shown at checkout and on the pricing page, and are billed in advance through Stripe. Plans are available monthly or annually as shown at checkout. Add-ons and additional user seats, where offered, are billed on the same period as the plan they attach to. Prices may change on renewal with at least 30 days notice by email; the price for a period already paid does not change.

Taxes are added where required. Fees are non-refundable except as required by law. The Customer may cancel at any time from Settings; the subscription stays active until the end of the paid period and does not renew. Vanward may suspend the service for non-payment after notice.

9. Vanward’s intellectual property

Vanward owns the service, its software, designs, scoring methods, checklists, and all related intellectual property, including patent-pending technology, and reserves all rights not expressly granted. The names Vanward, CapReadi, FinReadi, BoardReadi, DealReadi, ReadiLink, and the Readi suite are Vanward’s marks. If the Customer provides suggestions, Vanward may use them without obligation. Nothing in these Terms transfers any Vanward intellectual property to the Customer or any Recipient.

10. Term, termination, and data at the end

These Terms apply while the Customer has an account. Either party may terminate for material breach not cured within 15 days of notice. On cancellation or termination the Customer may export its Customer Data and Outputs from Settings for 30 days, after which Vanward deletes them from active systems within 30 days and from backups within 90 days, except where retention is required by law. Active ReadiLinks stop working when the account closes. Sections 3, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 survive.

11. Confidentiality and security

Vanward treats Customer Data as confidential, stores it encrypted at rest and in transit, restricts access to personnel who need it to operate or support the service, and serves files to Recipients only through short-lived links. Vanward will notify the Customer without undue delay, and in any case within 72 hours of confirming it, of any unauthorized access to Customer Data. Details are in the Privacy Policy.

12. Warranties and disclaimers

Vanward warrants that it will provide the service with reasonable skill and care. Otherwise the service is provided as is, and Vanward disclaims all other warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. Vanward does not warrant that readiness scores, automated checks, or figures read from a connected system are accurate or complete, that any Recipient will invest in or transact with the Customer, or that the service will be uninterrupted or error-free.

13. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither party is liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, or business opportunity, however caused. Vanward’s total liability under these Terms is limited to the fees the Customer paid to Vanward in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim. These limits do not apply to a party’s breach of section 11, infringement of the other party’s intellectual property, or liability that cannot be limited by law.

14. General

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Utah without regard to conflict-of-laws rules, and the state and federal courts located in Utah County, Utah have exclusive jurisdiction, except that either party may seek injunctive relief in any court. The Customer may not assign these Terms without Vanward’s consent; Vanward may assign them to an affiliate or a successor to its business.

Notices to Vanward go to hello@vanward.ai; notices to the Customer go to the account email. Vanward may update these Terms by posting the new version and emailing the Customer at least 15 days before a material change takes effect; continued use after that date is acceptance. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and any order confirmation are the entire agreement. If a provision is unenforceable the rest remains in effect.

Vanward LLC, 2901 W Bluegrass Blvd, Ste 200, Lehi, UT 84043, United States.