Ember Privacy Policy

Ember respects the privacy of the founders and companies that use our platform. This Privacy Policy explains how Ember, referred to in this Privacy Policy as “Ember,” “we,” “us,” or “our,” collects, uses, processes, stores, and discloses information when you access or use Ember’s websites, applications, integrations, artificial intelligence features, and related services collectively referred to as the “Services.”

Ember provides a startup intelligence and readiness platform that helps founders understand their companies through technical, operational, and self reported information. Among other functionality, Ember allows users to connect GitHub repositories, analyze engineering activity, identify trends and signals, generate startup readiness assessments, and receive personalized insights through Ember’s artificial intelligence features.

By using the Services, you acknowledge the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

1. Information We Collect

The information we collect depends on how you interact with Ember, the features you use, and the integrations you choose to connect.

1.1 Account Information

When you create or maintain an Ember account, we may collect information such as:

• your name;
• email address;
• authentication information and account identifiers;
• company or startup name;
• account preferences;
• account creation and login information; and
• other information you provide when creating or managing your account.

Authentication may be provided in part through third party authentication providers. Those providers may process information according to their own privacy policies.

1.2 Company and Startup Information

When you configure your startup within Ember, we may collect information that you voluntarily provide about your company, including:

• company name;
• industry;
• founding date;
• company stage;
• team size and composition;
• team member names, roles, or related information;
• monthly burn;
• monthly revenue;
• cash or runway related information;
• deployment information;
• security and compliance information;
• market readiness information;
• product and operational information; and
• other information you choose to provide about your startup.

Some of this information may relate to individuals working for your company. You are responsible for ensuring that you have the authority to provide such information to Ember.

1.3 GitHub and Repository Information

When you choose to connect GitHub to Ember, you authorize Ember to access information made available through the permissions you grant to the applicable GitHub integration.

Depending on the permissions granted and the Ember features you use, this information may include:

• GitHub account and organization identifiers;
• repository names and metadata;
• commit identifiers, timestamps, authorship information, and commit messages;
• pull request information;
• contributor information;
• deployment activity;
• workflow and GitHub Actions information;
• deployment success and failure information;
• repository activity and engineering patterns; and
• other technical metadata necessary to provide Ember’s analysis.

Ember uses this information to calculate metrics, classify engineering activity, identify patterns, generate signals, analyze startup readiness, and provide personalized insights.

Ember only accesses repositories and GitHub information made available through the permissions granted to the applicable integration.

Connecting a GitHub repository to Ember does not transfer ownership of your repository, software, intellectual property, or company information to Ember.

If you disconnect GitHub or revoke Ember’s permissions, Ember will no longer be able to obtain new information through that authorization. Information previously obtained may remain temporarily within our systems, backups, logs, or derived analytics in accordance with Section 8 of this Privacy Policy.

1.4 Aether and Artificial Intelligence Interaction Data

Ember provides artificial intelligence powered functionality, including Aether Intelligence.

When you interact with Aether or another artificial intelligence feature, we may process:

• messages and questions you submit;
• responses generated by the Service;
• startup information relevant to your request;
• readiness scores and signals;
• GitHub derived metrics;
• Hermes generated company context;
• conversation history;
• feedback you provide regarding a response; and
• technical information necessary to operate the feature.

Ember may retain conversation history so that conversations remain available across sessions and so that Aether can provide contextually relevant responses.

Artificial intelligence features may use third party artificial intelligence infrastructure or model providers to process information on Ember’s behalf.

1.5 Derived Information and Analytics

Ember generates information from the data available to the Service.

This may include:

• Ship, Crew, Runway, or other readiness scores;
• overall startup readiness scores;
• engineering velocity measurements;
• commit classifications;
• deployment statistics;
• contributor activity measurements;
• team activity measurements;
• key person risk indicators;
• development trends;
• code quality related signals;
• deployment health indicators;
• detected changes in activity;
• recommendations;
• startup health signals;
• Hermes knowledge and structured company context; and
• other predictions, classifications, summaries, or analyses.

These outputs may be based on information obtained through integrations, information you provide directly, or a combination of both.

1.6 Usage and Device Information

When you access Ember, we and our service providers may automatically collect certain technical information, including:

• Internet Protocol address;
• browser type and version;
• device and operating system information;
• pages or features accessed;
• dates and times of access;
• referring pages;
• session information;
• authentication events;
• interactions with features;
• error and crash information;
• performance information; and
• similar diagnostic and usage data.

We use this information to operate, secure, maintain, troubleshoot, and improve the Services.

1.7 Cookies and Similar Technologies

Ember and our service providers may use cookies and similar technologies to maintain sessions, authenticate users, remember preferences, understand use of the Services, maintain security, and improve performance.

Some cookies are necessary for the Services to function.

Where required by applicable law, Ember will provide appropriate choices regarding nonessential cookies or similar technologies.

2. How We Use Information

We may use information collected through Ember to:

• create, authenticate, and maintain accounts;
• provide and operate the Services;
• connect and synchronize authorized GitHub repositories;
• process technical and company information;
• classify engineering activity;
• calculate startup readiness scores and related metrics;
• generate weekly or periodic startup analytics;
• detect trends, risks, and changes in company activity;
• generate Hermes knowledge and company context;
• provide Aether Intelligence and other artificial intelligence functionality;
• personalize recommendations and insights;
• maintain conversation history;
• provide customer support;
• troubleshoot technical problems;
• monitor the reliability and performance of the Services;
• protect Ember, our users, and others against fraud, abuse, security threats, or unauthorized activity;
• investigate suspected violations of our Terms of Service;
• maintain and improve the Services;
• develop new Ember functionality;
• generate aggregated or deidentified analytics;
• communicate with you regarding your account or the Services;
• comply with applicable legal obligations; and
• establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

We seek to collect and retain information only where it serves a legitimate operational, security, product, or legal purpose. This approach is consistent with Federal Trade Commission guidance encouraging businesses to understand the information they maintain and avoid collecting or retaining unnecessary personal information.

3. Artificial Intelligence and Model Training

Ember uses artificial intelligence to provide certain features, including classifications, recommendations, summaries, startup analysis, and Aether Intelligence.

Information submitted to artificial intelligence systems may include relevant portions of your startup information, technical metrics, repository metadata, readiness information, signals, and messages where necessary to provide the requested functionality.

Ember does not use private repository information, confidential company information, or private Aether conversations to train general purpose artificial intelligence models for unrelated purposes.

Where Ember uses third party artificial intelligence providers, information may be transmitted to and processed by those providers as necessary to provide the applicable Ember feature.

Ember may use aggregated or deidentified information to evaluate, develop, and improve its own products, analytics, scoring methodologies, and systems, provided that such information cannot reasonably be associated with a particular individual or company.

Artificial intelligence systems may produce inaccurate or incomplete information. Users should independently evaluate important recommendations and decisions generated through Ember.

4. How We Disclose Information

Ember does not disclose private company information merely because a company uses the Services.

We may disclose information in the circumstances described below.

4.1 Service Providers

We may provide information to companies that perform services on our behalf, including providers of:

• cloud infrastructure and hosting;
• databases and data storage;
• authentication;
• artificial intelligence processing;
• analytics;
• application monitoring;
• security;
• email and communications;
• customer support; and
• other technical infrastructure.

These providers may access information only as reasonably necessary to perform services for Ember or as otherwise permitted by applicable agreements and law.

The FTC recommends that companies evaluate service providers that handle sensitive information and establish appropriate security expectations with those providers.

4.2 Connected Services

When you choose to connect Ember with a third party service, such as GitHub, information may be exchanged with that service as necessary to establish, maintain, or operate the integration.

Your use of a third party service remains subject to that provider’s applicable terms and privacy practices.

4.3 At Your Direction

We may disclose information when you intentionally use a feature that directs Ember to share information with another person or organization.

For example, future Ember functionality may allow a founder to share startup information, reports, or readiness information with investors, advisors, team members, or other parties.

Where Ember provides such functionality, information designated as private will not be made available through that functionality unless you take an action authorizing or enabling the applicable disclosure.

4.4 Legal and Safety Reasons

We may disclose information where we reasonably believe disclosure is necessary to:

• comply with applicable law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request;
• respond to a subpoena, court order, or other lawful request;
• enforce our agreements;
• investigate fraud, abuse, security incidents, or unlawful activity;
• protect the rights, property, or safety of Ember, our users, or others; or
• establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

Where legally permitted and reasonably practicable, we may notify affected users before disclosing their information in response to legal process.

4.5 Business Transactions

If Ember is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, bankruptcy, sale of assets, or similar corporate transaction, information may be disclosed or transferred as part of that transaction.

Any successor receiving personal information will remain subject to applicable law and any commitments governing the information.

4.6 Aggregated or Deidentified Information

We may disclose aggregated or deidentified information that cannot reasonably be associated with a particular individual or company.

For example, Ember may publish aggregated information regarding engineering trends, startup readiness patterns, or platform usage without identifying individual users or companies.

5. Investors and Other Companies

Private startup information is private by default.

Ember does not make your private repository information, private financial information, team information, Aether conversations, or other confidential company information available to investors or unrelated startups simply because you use Ember.

If Ember introduces features allowing startups to make certain information discoverable or share information with investors, we will provide controls governing the information made available through those features.

A founder’s use of Ember does not constitute consent for Ember to disclose all information associated with that founder or company to investors.

This distinction is particularly important because Ember’s longer term product architecture contemplates investor facing functionality, while the present product centers on founder facing readiness intelligence.

6. Sale of Personal Information

Ember does not sell personal information for monetary consideration.

We also do not sell private GitHub repository information, private company financial information, Aether conversation history, or confidential company information.

If our practices materially change, we will update this Privacy Policy and provide any notices or choices required by applicable law.

7. Data Security

Ember uses administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect information against unauthorized access, loss, misuse, alteration, or disclosure.

Depending on the nature of the information and our infrastructure, these safeguards may include access controls, authentication protections, encrypted communications, infrastructure security controls, logging, monitoring, secrets management, and restrictions on access to sensitive information.

Access to sensitive company and account information is intended to be limited to systems, service providers, and personnel with a legitimate need for that access.

Our original technical architecture also provides for encrypted storage of integration credentials rather than ordinary plaintext storage.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. Accordingly, Ember cannot guarantee that unauthorized access, loss, or other security incidents will never occur.

The FTC recommends that software companies minimize unnecessary information, restrict access according to legitimate need, secure information throughout its lifecycle, and account for the security of service providers.

8. Data Retention

We retain information for only as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, including providing the Services, maintaining security, resolving disputes, complying with legal obligations, and enforcing our agreements.

Different categories of information may have different retention periods.

Account and company information may generally be retained while your account remains active.

GitHub derived information may be retained while the applicable integration or account remains active and for a reasonable period afterward where necessary to complete deletion processes, maintain system integrity, comply with legal obligations, or maintain limited backups.

Aether conversation history may remain associated with your account until it is deleted in accordance with available account functionality or our retention procedures.

Certain security logs, audit records, fraud prevention records, transaction records, and legal records may be retained for longer periods where reasonably necessary.

Information may temporarily remain in backups after deletion from active systems. Such information will be removed or rendered inaccessible according to our backup retention processes unless continued retention is legally required.

We may retain aggregated or deidentified information that can no longer reasonably be associated with you or your company.

The FTC recommends establishing retention practices that identify what information is retained, why it is retained, how long it is retained, and how it will ultimately be disposed of.

9. Disconnecting Integrations

You may disconnect supported third party integrations through Ember or through the applicable third party provider where such functionality is available.

Disconnecting an integration prevents Ember from receiving new information through that authorization after the disconnection becomes effective.

Disconnecting an integration does not necessarily immediately delete information previously obtained through the integration. Previously collected information will be handled according to this Privacy Policy and our applicable retention procedures.

10. Account Deletion

You may request deletion of your Ember account and associated personal information by using available account controls or contacting us using the information provided in Section 17.

Subject to applicable legal, security, and operational exceptions, account deletion may include deletion or deidentification of:

• account information;
• company information;
• stored GitHub derived information;
• Aether conversation history;
• startup metrics and analyses; and
• other information associated with the account.

Certain information may remain temporarily in backups or may be retained where required by law or reasonably necessary for security, fraud prevention, dispute resolution, enforcement of agreements, or protection of legal rights.

11. Your Privacy Rights

Depending on where you live, applicable privacy law may provide rights concerning your personal information.

These rights may include the ability to:

• request access to personal information we maintain about you;
• request correction of inaccurate personal information;
• request deletion of personal information;
• obtain a copy of certain personal information;
• object to or restrict certain processing;
• withdraw consent where processing depends upon consent; and
• appeal certain decisions concerning a privacy request where required by law.

You may submit a privacy request using the contact information in Section 17.

We may need to verify your identity before completing certain requests. We may also deny or limit a request where permitted or required by applicable law.

Authorized agents may submit requests on behalf of individuals where applicable law permits such requests and appropriate authorization can be verified.

12. Information About Other People

You may provide Ember with information relating to cofounders, employees, contractors, contributors, advisors, or other individuals associated with your company.

You represent that you have the right or other lawful basis necessary to provide such information to Ember and to permit its processing as described in this Privacy Policy.

Do not provide Ember with sensitive personal information about another person unless it is necessary for your legitimate use of the Services and you are legally permitted to do so.

13. Children’s Privacy

The Services are designed for founders, companies, and individuals engaged in startup related activities.

Ember is not directed toward children under 13 years of age, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 13 without appropriate authorization, we will take reasonable steps to delete the information.

If you believe that a child under 13 has provided personal information to Ember, please contact us.

14. International Users

Ember is operated from the United States.

If you access the Services from another country, your information may be transferred to, stored in, or processed in the United States or other jurisdictions in which Ember or our service providers operate.

Those jurisdictions may have privacy laws different from the laws of your jurisdiction.

Where required by applicable law, Ember will use appropriate mechanisms for international transfers of personal information.

15. Third Party Websites and Services

The Services may contain links to, integrate with, or otherwise interact with third party websites, applications, and services.

Ember does not control the privacy practices of those third parties.

Information you provide directly to a third party, or information processed independently by that third party, is governed by that party’s privacy practices and agreements.

We encourage users to review the privacy policies of third party services they connect to Ember.

16. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time as Ember develops, our practices change, or applicable laws and regulations evolve.

When we update this Privacy Policy, we will revise the “Last Updated” date at the top of the Policy.

If we make material changes, we may provide additional notice through the Services, by email, or through another appropriate method.

Your continued use of Ember after an updated Privacy Policy becomes effective is subject to the updated Policy, except where applicable law requires additional consent.

17. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, our privacy practices, or information associated with your account, or if you would like to submit a privacy request, you may contact us at:

Ember
Privacy: mokshdoshi8@gmail.com
Website: joinember.dev

If Ember designates a Data Protection Officer, privacy representative, or additional jurisdiction specific contact in the future, that information will be added here.