Terms of use

These terms govern your use of startupappraisal.com (the "site"), operated by FIH LLC ("FIH", "we", "us"). By using the site you agree to them. If you do not agree, do not use the site. Section 15 requires most disputes to be resolved by individual binding arbitration and waives class actions. Our privacy policy explains how we handle personal information.

1. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old and able to enter a binding contract. If you use the site for a company, you confirm you are authorised to share its information and to bind it to these terms.

2. What the site does

• a free startup valuation tool that returns an estimated range, method, value drivers, risks and benchmark positioning from the information you enter;
• a pre-money calculator, market benchmarks, a deal database, valuation guides and articles;
• an investor directory and investor matching by sector, stage and round size;
• weekly and monthly summaries of funding rounds compiled from SEC Form D filings;
• a paid matched investor list and paid advisory sessions (section 9);
• contact and advisor-request forms, and a weekly email brief.

3. Valuations are estimates, not appraisals

A valuation from the site is a directional estimate for planning, produced automatically from your inputs, published benchmarks and an AI model, with no human review. It is not a formal appraisal, a 409A valuation, a fairness opinion, a solvency opinion, a valuation for tax, accounting, financial reporting, estate, divorce or litigation purposes, or an offer by anyone to invest in or acquire your company. It depends entirely on what you enter: wrong or incomplete inputs produce a wrong answer. Real rounds and sale prices are set by negotiation and often differ widely from any estimate. Do not rely on an estimate as the sole basis for pricing a round, accepting an offer, issuing equity or making any other decision.

4. No investment, securities, legal or tax advice

Everything on the site is general information for educational purposes only. It is not investment, financial, securities, legal, tax or accounting advice, and it is not a recommendation to invest in, sell or buy any company or security. Nothing on the site is an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any security. Through the site we do not act as a broker-dealer, placement agent, funding portal or investment adviser, we do not arrange or take part in any investment, and we do not receive any fee contingent on a round you raise from investors you find here. Speak to a qualified lawyer, accountant or licensed financial professional before making decisions that matter.

5. Benchmarks, Form D data and the investor directory

Benchmarks are transcribed from published reports, which we cite, and may contain transcription errors or be out of date. Funding-round summaries are compiled from public SEC EDGAR Form D filings; a filing shows that a notice was filed and is not proof that a company raised money on particular terms, is raising now, or is a good investment. Classifications such as sector are our own and may be wrong. The investor directory and matches are built from public and business sources; investors' focus, stage, cheque size and staff change often, and a match does not mean an investor will be interested in your company or has endorsed the site. Company and firm names are used only to identify them.

6. AI-generated content

Parts of the valuation report, including any analysis of your website, are written by an AI model that may search the web. AI output can be wrong, incomplete or out of date. Treat it as a starting point to check, not a finding.

7. FIH advisory and no client relationship

Sell-side M&A advisory referred to on the site is provided by FIH (fih.com). Using the site, submitting a form or requesting an advisor does not make you a client of FIH and creates no advisory, agency or fiduciary relationship. A client relationship begins only when you and FIH sign a written engagement agreement, which then governs that work. FIH may decline any enquiry.

8. Your submissions

You agree that what you submit is accurate to the best of your knowledge, is yours (or your company's) to share, and does not include anyone else's personal information without permission. You give us permission to store and use it to produce your report, respond to you and as described in the privacy policy. Please do not submit trade secrets or information you are under a duty to keep confidential. Submitting the valuation report form also asks you to confirm a subscription to our weekly brief, which you can decline or leave at any time.

9. Purchases

Matched investor list (US$95). Payment unlocks the business contact details on file (where available, a named partner, title, email and LinkedIn profile) for the investors matched to your valuation, with a drafted approach email for each firm. The list is shown on the page, and the contacts are also emailed to you. Some firms may have no contact on file, and contact details can be out of date or unverified; each contact's verification status is shown. The list is for your own company's fundraising only. You send any approach yourself, from your own address, and you are responsible for complying with anti-spam, privacy and securities laws when you do; do not resell, publish or bulk-mail the list. We never contact investors on your behalf.

Advisory sessions (US$495). A 60-minute exit readiness or fundraise positioning session with an FIH advisor, followed by a written summary. After payment an advisor emails you to arrange a time. If you engage FIH afterwards, the session fee is credited in full against FIH's engagement fee. A session is a discussion, not a formal valuation, opinion or legal, tax or investment advice, and does not by itself make you an FIH client.

Payment. Prices are in US dollars and shown before checkout. Payments are processed by Stripe; we do not see or store your card details. Delayed payment methods are fulfilled once the payment clears. Problems and refunds. If something you paid for is not delivered as described, for example a session that cannot be scheduled, contact us through our contact form or by replying to your confirmation email and we will work with you to put it right. Any refund will be paid to the original payment method. Nothing in these terms limits rights you have under consumer protection law.

10. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• scrape, harvest or bulk-download the directory, benchmarks, Form D summaries or reports, or run the valuation tool through scripts or bots;
• evade usage limits, the security check, the payment gate or any other protection, or share unlocked investor contacts with others;
• interfere with the site, overload it, probe its security, or access parts of it not meant for you;
• submit false, abusive or automated form entries, or other people's contact details;
• use the site or its output to break any law, harass anyone, send unsolicited bulk messages, or mislead others, for example by presenting an estimate as a formal or independent valuation.

Search engines and similar crawlers that respect robots.txt are welcome. We may block or limit access at any time if we believe these terms have been broken.

11. Intellectual property

The site's articles, design, valuation method, compilations, selection and arrangement of data, and code are owned by us or our licensors and protected by copyright and other laws. You may use the site for your own company, save or print your own report, and quote reasonable extracts with a link back. Public filings remain public; our compilations of them may not be republished in bulk. Trademarks belong to their owners and imply no endorsement.

Copyright complaints. If you believe material on the site infringes your copyright, send a notice through our contact form identifying the work, the material and where it appears, with your contact details, a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorised, and a statement under penalty of perjury that your notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorised to act for the owner.

12. Disclaimer of warranties

The site, its tools, estimates, reports, directory, data, investor lists and all other content are provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and uninterrupted or error-free operation, to the fullest extent the law allows.

13. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, we and our affiliates, officers, employees, advisors and contractors will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, valuation, investment, data, goodwill or opportunity, arising out of or relating to the site, its content or any purchase, even if told such loss was possible. Our total liability for all claims relating to the site is limited to the greater of the amounts you paid us through the site in the 12 months before the claim or one hundred US dollars (US$100). Some jurisdictions do not allow some of these limits, so they may not all apply to you.

14. Indemnity

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold us and our affiliates harmless from any claims, losses, liabilities and costs, including reasonable attorneys' fees, arising from your breach of these terms, your submissions, your use of investor contacts or other output from the site, or your misuse of the site.

15. Disputes, arbitration and class action waiver

Please contact us first; most concerns can be resolved informally within 60 days. If not, any dispute arising out of or relating to the site, a purchase or these terms will be resolved by final and binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules (or its Commercial Arbitration Rules if you use the site for a business). Either party may instead bring an individual claim in small claims court if it qualifies, and either party may ask a court for an injunction over misuse of intellectual property. The arbitrator decides all questions of arbitrability, except the scope and enforceability of the class action waiver, which a court decides.

You and we each waive the right to a jury trial and to bring or take part in any class, collective or representative action. You may opt out of this section within 30 days of first using the site by sending your name and a statement that you opt out of arbitration through our contact form.

16. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York and the Federal Arbitration Act, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Subject to section 15, the state and federal courts in New York County, New York have exclusive jurisdiction.

17. General

We may change these terms by posting a new version with a new date; continued use of the site after that means you accept the change, and a purchase is governed by the terms in force when you made it. If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. Our failure to enforce a term is not a waiver of it. You may not transfer your rights under these terms; we may transfer ours. These terms, the privacy policy and any checkout terms shown at purchase are the entire agreement between you and us about the site; a separate FIH engagement agreement governs any advisory engagement.

Questions about these terms: use our contact form.