Terms of Use

First Check is an informational, editorial, and discovery platform that helps founders, angel investors, and the startup ecosystem understand angel investors and their experience, interests, perspectives, and approach to supporting founders.

First Check is not an investment adviser, broker, dealer, financial adviser, law firm, accounting firm, or regulated investment marketplace.

Information is provided for general informational and discovery purposes only. Nothing on the website is investment, financial, legal, or tax advice; an offer or solicitation to buy or sell securities; or a recommendation or endorsement of any investment, investor, founder, company, fund, syndicate, or transaction.

You are responsible for your own diligence and for obtaining appropriate professional advice before making investment, fundraising, legal, financial, or business decisions.

Profiles may include information submitted by the angel or a nominator, obtained through interviews or public sources, or researched and summarized editorially by First Check.

We aim to make profiles useful and reasonably accurate but do not guarantee that any profile or other information is complete, current, accurate, or error-free. Inclusion is not an endorsement, verification of investment performance, guarantee of availability, or representation that an individual will invest. Verify information material to your decisions independently.

When submitting information, you represent that you have the right to provide it; to the best of your knowledge it is not deliberately false, misleading, defamatory, or unlawful; and it does not violate another person's intellectual-property or privacy rights. You remain responsible for information you knowingly submit.

When you submit the final angel profile form, you agree to these Terms and acknowledge the Privacy Policy. You authorize First Check to publish the information designated for your public profile; distribute profile material through media, editorial, community, and distribution channels; and share relevant profile information, private contact details, and other non-public information with founders, investors, and startup-ecosystem participants for discovery, introductions, and deal matchmaking.

This authorization applies to relevant opportunities without separate consent each time. It does not permit First Check to sell or rent your personal information or disclose it for unrelated third-party advertising or data-brokerage purposes.

By submitting information, photographs, profile material, descriptions, interview responses, nominations, or other content, you grant First Check a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use, reproduce, edit, adapt, summarize, publish, display, distribute, and otherwise use that material in connection with First Check and its editorial, discovery, promotional, and related activities.

This permits us to maintain and present profiles and editorial material without obtaining new permission whenever it is displayed, formatted, promoted, or republished within the First Check ecosystem. Legitimate correction or deletion requests are handled under our Privacy Policy, but do not automatically require removal of independently created editorial content, public factual information, aggregated information, or material we may lawfully use or retain.

Unless otherwise stated, the website, branding, design, original editorial material, interviews, compilations, profile presentation, software, graphics, and other original content are owned by or licensed to First Check. You may link to First Check and share reasonable excerpts for legitimate informational purposes with attribution.

You may not, without permission, reproduce substantial portions of the site or database; republish our content as your own; systematically scrape or harvest profiles or data; build a competing database using substantial First Check content; copy our branding or design misleadingly; or commercially redistribute our content except as permitted by law.

You may not use the site unlawfully; submit knowingly false, fraudulent, defamatory, or misleading information; impersonate others; spam; gain unauthorized access; probe, scan, attack, disrupt, overload, or interfere with systems or security; introduce malware; unreasonably load the service through automation; harvest private contact information; circumvent controls; or misuse information to harass, threaten, discriminate against, or harm anyone. We may restrict access where we reasonably believe these Terms are being violated.

First Check may link to third-party websites, profiles, companies, publications, communities, social networks, or services. These links are for reference and convenience. We do not control and are not responsible for their content, security, availability, accuracy, privacy practices, or terms. A link does not necessarily constitute endorsement.

We may add, remove, modify, suspend, or discontinue parts of First Check at any time and do not guarantee that the website or any profile, feature, or service will always be available.

First Check and its content are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis to the fullest extent permitted by law. We make no warranty about information accuracy or completeness, investor suitability, investment or fundraising outcomes, angel availability, uninterrupted operation, or absence of errors or security vulnerabilities. You use the service at your own discretion and risk.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, First Check and its operators, contributors, partners, and affiliates will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or loss of profits, opportunities, data, reputation, investment value, or business arising from use of or reliance on First Check; profile information; relationships arising through the platform; investment or fundraising decisions; third-party services; or service interruption. Nothing excludes liability that cannot legally be excluded.

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to be responsible for losses, claims, or expenses arising from your unlawful misuse of First Check, violation of these Terms, or content submitted in violation of another person's rights.

Our collection and handling of personal information is described in the First Check Angels Privacy Policy.

We may update these Terms as First Check develops. The current version and update date will be published here. Continued use after changes take effect constitutes acceptance.

These Terms are governed by the laws applicable in Ontario, Canada, and applicable federal laws of Canada, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. Subject to applicable law, disputes will be brought before the courts of Ontario, Canada.