Terms of use

1. Who we are and what these terms cover

1.1 Cofoundista is a platform for finding co-founders at cofoundista.com (the "Platform"). It is operated by Gregor Zehetner, sole proprietor, 2540 Bad Vöslau, Austria ("Cofoundista", "we", "us"). You can reach us at contact@cofoundista.com. More details are in the imprint.

1.2 These terms of use govern the contract between you and us about using the Platform with an account: the member area, the partner portal and the emails we send in connection with them. The code of conduct is part of these terms. The public pages of cofoundista.com, such as the open roles and the cap table calculator, can be used without an account; section 20 applies to them.

1.3 How we process personal data is set out in our privacy policy. It informs you; it is not part of the contract.

2. What Cofoundista does, and what it does not do

2.1 On Cofoundista, people who are building a start-up publish co-founder searches ("founders"), and people who want to join a start-up as a co-founder create a profile and say what matters to them. Some members do both. The Platform suggests searches and people based on a rule-based fit score (section 8) and lets members send each other intros. Contact details are shared only when the recipient accepts an intro (section 9).

2.2 Cofoundista brings people together, nothing more. We are not a party to any agreement between members, such as a founders' agreement, a shareholders' agreement, an employment contract or a service contract. We are not an employment agency or a recruiter, and we give no legal, tax, financial or investment advice.

2.3 We do not guarantee that you will find a co-founder, that a search will be filled, that an intro will be accepted or that a team will succeed.

2.4 The Platform is in a beta phase. Features may change, be added or be removed (section 14). We welcome your feedback at contact@cofoundista.com.

3. Who can use Cofoundista

3.1 You must be at least 18 years old and have full legal capacity. You confirm this when you sign up.

3.2 An account belongs to one natural person, who acts in their own name. Companies and other organisations do not get accounts of their own; a founder presents the venture through a search. Partner programmes work with us under a separate agreement (section 10.4).

3.3 Cofoundista is open to consumers and to entrepreneurs. Where these terms treat consumers within the meaning of the Austrian Consumer Protection Act (KSchG) differently, they say so. Mandatory consumer rights stay unaffected in every case.

3.4 There is no right to an account. We may refuse a sign-up, in particular if we suspended or ended an earlier account of the same person for a breach of these terms.

3.5 Our business territory is the European Economic Area (the member states of the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway), Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Cofoundista is for people who live or build a company there. Profiles and searches can name only countries of the business territory. We do not offer the Platform for other countries.

4. Your account

4.1 You sign up with your email address. You sign in with a 6-digit code that we send to that address, or with your Google account. We do not store passwords.

4.2 Your details must be true, complete and current. Keep your email account and your Google account safe, and do not let anyone else use your account. Tell us at once if you think someone else has access to it.

4.3 Each person may hold one account. We may merge or close duplicate accounts.

4.4 We send you the emails the Platform needs, such as sign-in codes, intros and their reminders, and our decisions on your profile and your searches. You cannot switch these off while you have an account. You can switch off emails with new suggestions in your settings. We send product news only with your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.

5. Accepting these terms, and changes

5.1 When you sign up, you accept these terms and the code of conduct and confirm that you have read the privacy policy. We record which version you accepted, in which language and when (see the privacy policy).

5.2 We may change these terms and the code of conduct for a good reason, such as new features, changes in the law or in court rulings, or to prevent misuse. We show you a new version with a summary of what changed when you next sign in. A change that affects your rights or duties applies to you only once you accept it. Until you do, you cannot continue to use the member area, but you can always download your data and delete your account.

5.3 Corrections that do not change your rights or duties, such as wording, typing errors or updated contact details, apply without a new acceptance.

5.4 Every version states its version number and the date from which it applies. Your settings list the versions you accepted.

6. Your profile

6.1 Your profile contains the details the profile form asks for; some of them are optional. Who sees which details is set out in the privacy policy. Members see your bio and your answers to the optional profile questions (such as "What I have built").

6.2 You write your profile yourself, in the language you choose, and you are responsible for its content. It must be true and must not infringe the rights of others, in particular copyright in photos, confidentiality duties and non-compete clauses from earlier roles.

6.3 Details of companies you founded or co-founded (your founder experience) must be correct, and you must be able to prove them on request. An exit needs a link (https) that proves it. The exit badge shows only once we checked the evidence. We check changes to your founder experience again.

6.4 Your profile goes live when you submit it. We check it afterwards against our published check criteria. We screen profiles in the background and may use automated tools, including AI, for this. A person on our team decides whether a profile is taken offline or an account is suspended. If something needs to change, we take your profile and your searches offline and tell you what to change. After your change we check again before your profile goes live.

6.5 Our check covers completeness and the rules of the code of conduct. It is not an identity check, a background check or a check of qualifications. We do not guarantee that a profile is genuine or that its details are correct. Do your own checks before you agree anything with another member (code of conduct, section 7).

6.6 If you want to join a start-up, you switch on your availability. If you switch it off, founders no longer see you in their suggestions and no new intros start; open intros can still be answered.

7. Co-founder searches

7.1 Founders can prepare search drafts once they submitted their profile. A search can go live when your profile is active and a plan covers it (section 10).

7.2 A search must describe a real venture and a real co-founder role (code of conduct, section 2). Job ads and offers of services are not allowed. Your details on stage, incorporation status, legal form, equity and salary must be correct.

7.3 We check every search before it goes live, and again when you change its teaser or its details. We may ask for changes or refuse a search. There is no right to publication.

7.4 The teaser of a published search (title, teaser text, industry, stage, role sought and city) is public on cofoundista.com. Search engines and AI search services can find and show it. All other details are visible only to members, as set out in the privacy policy. Do not put anything into a search that has to stay secret (code of conduct, section 5.6).

7.5 If you list your current team, you confirm that each person listed agreed to be shown. You are responsible for that consent. A listed person can ask us to remove their entry.

7.6 You can pause a search, mark it as filled or close it. Open intros for a filled or closed search end with a neutral notice. When the coverage of your plan ends, searches beyond the remaining coverage pause (section 10.3).

8. Fit score and suggestions

8.1 The Platform compares searches and people by fixed rules. The role always has to match. Every other criterion with a value counts towards a score in each direction, weighted with weights we set. A pair that misses a must-have criterion of the other side is not suggested. The Platform and the privacy policy explain how the score works.

8.2 The score measures how well stated criteria match. It does not judge a person, an idea or the chances of a venture, and it is not a recommendation. Whether you contact someone, and whether you build a company with them, is your decision.

8.3 We may change criteria and weights to improve suggestions. There is no right to a particular rank, to a number of suggestions or to be suggested to particular members.

9. Intros and contact

9.1 A person who wants to join can ask for an intro to a search, and a founder can invite a person to a search. Every intro needs a personal note. When you send an intro, the recipient sees more of your details, as set out in the privacy policy; the Platform tells you which ones before you send.

9.2 The recipient can accept or decline. Only when the recipient accepts do both sides receive each other's full name, email address and, if given, phone number by email. A declined intro ends with a neutral notice, without the reason. An intro without an answer expires after the period shown on the Platform. You can withdraw an intro before it is answered.

9.3 To keep intros personal, the Platform limits open intros and new intros per day, and sets a waiting time before the same intro can be sent again. The Platform shows these limits. We may change them.

9.4 After an accepted intro you talk outside the Platform, for example by email. What you agree is up to you and the other member. We take no part in it and are not responsible for it.

9.5 Once contact details or other information have been shared, we cannot recall them, even if the other member later deletes their account or is blocked.

9.6 Some time after an accepted intro, we ask both sides whether you talked and whether you started a trial project. Answering is voluntary.

10. Plans, codes and partner programmes

10.1 At present, Cofoundista is free for people who want to join a start-up. Founders need a plan to publish searches; the plan sets how many searches can be active at the same time. During the beta there is no checkout: a plan comes from a voucher code, from the sponsorship of a partner programme or from us. Before we offer paid plans, we will publish separate terms with prices, payment and the rights of consumers, such as the right of withdrawal. We never charge you without your explicit order.

10.2 Codes:

(a) A voucher code grants a plan for the period stated with the code. Each code can be used once per person. A code can be limited in time and in the number of uses.

(b) With the programme code of a partner, you ask that partner to sponsor your plan. When you send the request, the partner's admins see your name and email address. The partner decides freely whether to confirm it. A confirmed sponsorship runs as long as the code states, at most until the partner's licence ends, and the partner can end it.

(c) Codes have no cash value and cannot be exchanged for money. Do not pass them on against the code of conduct (section 6.3). A revoked or expired code can no longer be redeemed; plans already granted remain.

10.3 When a plan or a sponsorship ends, searches beyond your remaining coverage pause, newest first, and searches in review go back to draft. We tell you by email. Your drafts and your data remain.

10.4 Partner programmes, such as incubators and universities, work with us under a separate agreement. They are not a party to the contract between you and us, and we are not responsible for their programmes. Which data a partner sees is set out in the privacy policy.

10.5 A plan runs for the period for which it was granted. We may end it early only for good cause, in particular for a breach of these terms.

10.6 We may change our prices and pricing models, for example introduce paid plans or paid features, also for people who want to join a start-up, change what a plan includes, or end free access in whole or in part. We announce such a change by email and on the Platform at least 30 days before it takes effect. Plans already granted run until the end of their period. A paid plan starts only with your explicit order (section 10.1). If you do not want to continue under the new conditions, you can delete your account at any time.

11. Your content and the rights you grant us

11.1 Your content, such as profile texts, your photo, your founder experience, your searches and your intro notes, remains yours.

11.2 You grant us the non-exclusive right, free of charge and for as long as your account exists, to store, copy, format and show your content on the Platform and in our emails, as far as needed to run the Platform as described in these terms and in the privacy policy. For the public teaser of a published search, this includes showing it on cofoundista.com and in the structured data that search engines read. Our service providers may exercise this right on our behalf.

11.3 The right ends when you delete the content or your account. It continues for content that other members have already received (such as intro notes and contact details), for backups until they are overwritten, and as far as we must keep content by law or to defend legal claims.

11.4 You confirm that you hold the rights needed for this and that your content breaks neither the law nor the code of conduct.

12. Rules for using Cofoundista

12.1 You use the Platform only to find co-founders and to build a company together, in line with the law, these terms and the code of conduct.

12.2 In particular, you must not:

(a) give false information, pretend to be someone else or misrepresent your connection to a company or a programme;

(b) use the Platform to hire people, to sell or to advertise;

(c) read, copy or store content of the Platform by automated means, such as bots, crawlers, scrapers, headless browsers or AI agents, or compile profiles or searches into a dataset, a database or training data for AI models; search engines and AI services may read the public pages as far as our robots.txt allows;

(d) contact members in bulk or systematically, on the Platform or outside it;

(e) get around limits, visibility rules or other technical protection, or try to access accounts or data that are not meant for you;

(f) disrupt or overload the Platform, upload malware or test its security without our written consent;

(g) use the Platform or its data to build or feed a competing service.

12.3 If you break these rules, we may take the measures in section 13.4 and claim damages and injunctive relief.

13. Content moderation, reports and our measures

13.1 We remove or restrict content and accounts that break the law, these terms or the code of conduct. We find them through our checks (sections 6.4 and 7.3) and through reports. Automated tools may help us; a person on our team decides on the measures in section 13.4.

13.2 Members report a profile or a search with the "Report" option. Anyone can report content they consider illegal, also without an account, by email to contact@cofoundista.com. Please include the link to the content, why you consider it illegal, your name and email address, and a statement that you believe in good faith that your report is accurate and complete. We confirm receipt, decide carefully, objectively and without undue delay, and tell you our decision.

13.3 We do not tell the reported member who reported them.

13.4 Depending on the seriousness of a breach, we may: ask for changes and take a profile or a search offline until they are made; take a search offline or close it; restrict features; suspend an account; or end the contract (section 17). We act in proportion, taking into account how serious the breach is, whether it was repeated and whether it was deliberate, as well as your interests.

13.5 We tell you what we did and why, which rule of the law, these terms or the code of conduct it is based on, and whether automated tools were used, unless the law prevents it. You can object by replying to our email or by writing to contact@cofoundista.com. A person reviews the decision again. Your right to go to court stays unaffected.

13.6 Our single point of contact for members and for authorities under the Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065) is contact@cofoundista.com. You can write to us in English or German.

14. Availability and changes to the Platform

14.1 We run the Platform as well as we can, but we cannot promise that it is always available or free of errors. Maintenance, software errors, faults at our service providers and events beyond our control can interrupt it or impair its functions, for example the fit score, suggestions or emails.

14.2 We may develop the Platform further and change, add or remove features, in particular during the beta. If a change affects you significantly, we tell you in good time.

15. Warranty

15.1 We do not guarantee that the profiles, searches and other content of members are true, complete or current, or that members are who they say they are.

15.2 Mandatory statutory warranty rights, in particular those of consumers, stay unaffected.

16. Liability

16.1 We are liable without limitation for damage we cause intentionally, for personal injury, and wherever the law does not allow a limitation, for example under the Austrian Product Liability Act (PHG).

16.2 For damage we cause through gross negligence, we are liable without limitation towards consumers. Towards entrepreneurs, we are liable for gross negligence only up to a maximum amount per damage event: the higher of EUR 500 and the amount the entrepreneur paid us in the three months before the damage occurred.

16.3 We are not liable for slight negligence, except for personal injury.

16.4 We are not liable for the content and conduct of other members or partners, in particular for what happens in conversations, meetings and agreements after an intro, or for the use members make of data they received from you, unless sections 16.1 and 16.2 make us liable for our own fault.

16.5 These limits also apply to the people who work for us and to our service providers.

17. Ending your account, suspension and termination

17.1 The contract runs for an indefinite period, from your sign-up until your account is deleted.

17.2 You can end it at any time by deleting your account in your settings or by writing to contact@cofoundista.com. Your profile and your searches are hidden at once, and your open intros end. For 14 days you can cancel the deletion; after that we delete your account permanently, at the latest one month after your request. Contact details you shared in accepted intros stay with the other members. The privacy policy has the details.

17.3 We can end the contract with 30 days' notice by email.

17.4 We can suspend your account or end the contract with immediate effect for good cause, in particular for a serious or repeated breach of these terms or the code of conduct (code of conduct, section 9.2), for a well-founded suspicion of fraud or misuse, or to protect other members. While your account is suspended, you cannot sign in, your profile and your searches are hidden, and your open intros end. We tell you the reason (section 13.5). You can still ask us for a copy of your data.

17.5 As a lesser measure, we can suspend an account while we look into a matter.

18. Data protection

18.1 The privacy policy explains how we process personal data.

18.2 When you receive personal data of other members, in particular their contact details after an accepted intro, you process it on your own responsibility. Use it only for the conversation about building a company together (code of conduct, section 5) and in line with data protection law.

18.3 If you list other people in a search as your current team, you need their consent (section 7.5).

19. Rights in the Platform

The Platform, its software, design, texts and databases, and the name and logo "Cofoundista" belong to us or to our licensors. You receive only the right to use the Platform as these terms allow.

20. Public pages and tools

20.1 The public pages and tools of cofoundista.com, such as the cap table calculator, provide general information. They are not legal, tax, financial or investment advice. The calculator runs in your browser; we do not store what you enter.

20.2 We provide the public pages free of charge and without an account. Sections 16 and 19 apply accordingly.

21. Applicable law, jurisdiction and consumer rights

21.1 Austrian law applies, excluding its conflict-of-law rules and the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. If you are a consumer, this choice of law does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory rules of the country in which you have your habitual residence.

21.2 If you are a consumer, we can only sue you at the courts of the place where you have your residence, your habitual residence or your place of employment (§ 14 KSchG); within the EU, the courts of your home country. You can sue us in Austria or, where the law allows, in your home country. Between entrepreneurs, the courts competent for Vienna, Austria, have exclusive jurisdiction.

22. Final provisions

22.1 These terms are available in English and German. Both versions are equally binding. If they differ, the version in the language in which you accepted them applies.

22.2 If a provision of these terms is invalid, the rest remains valid. Between entrepreneurs, the invalid provision is replaced by a valid one that comes closest to its purpose.

22.3 If a company takes over the operation of Cofoundista, for example a company founded for that purpose, we publish updated terms that name the new operator and ask you to accept them (section 5.2). Instead, you can delete your account.

22.4 You may not transfer your account or your rights under this contract to anyone else without our consent.

22.5 Wherever these terms name people, they refer to people of every gender.

22.6 Contact: Cofoundista, Gregor Zehetner, 2540 Bad Vöslau, Austria, contact@cofoundista.com.