Privacy Policy

Who we are

Hugo helps businesses get ready for a deal: evaluations, a marketplace for investors and buyers, reviewed experts, the Data Desk (licensing a business’s own records to AI companies) and Hugo Kit, an AI research assistant. “Hugo”, “we” and “us” mean the company that runs hugoconnects.com and go.hugoconnects.com. Write to us at hello@hugoconnects.com.

What we collect, by what you do

Your account

Your name, email address and sign-in identity from our sign-in provider. When you start signing in, we keep a scrambled (hashed) record of your IP address and browser to stop abuse.

Agreements

When you agree to a document in Hugo (these terms, a confidentiality agreement, an attestation), we record which version, when, your IP address and your browser, so there’s a reliable record for both sides.

Business owners

Your business profile: what the business does, its finances and deal terms, its location, the names and roles of its owners and key people, and a contact phone if you give one. For an evaluation: details about the product, revenue band, compliance frameworks, known weaknesses and a kickoff contact. Each question says who can see the answer.

Investors and buyers

Your profile and preferences, check size, how you’d fund a deal, your LinkedIn, your self-reported accreditation basis (for example an income or net worth band) and your answer to the “bad actor” question. Hugo doesn’t verify accreditation. We also keep your introduction requests and what you wrote in them.

Experts

Your profile, credentials, professional licence numbers, insurance, contact details, and the names and emails of the client references you give us. We may email those references to check them.

The Data Desk

• Business owners: answers about your records; counts that Hugo’s audit tool measures in your own browser (not the records themselves); text of policies or contracts you choose to have Kit read, which goes to an outside AI provider and of which Hugo keeps only short quotes; names and emails of staff you list; and a de-identified sample you choose to send.
• Staff of a business who receive a private link: your yes or no, your payout email if you say yes, and the IP address and browser used to answer.
• Data buyers: your company’s details, requirements and bids.

Hugo Kit

Your prompts, the jobs you run, notes, sheets you upload, and the research Kit produces, which can include information about other people (below).

The Hugo mobile app

The same account and research as on the web. If you’re in Hugo’s founder program, also your weekly focus, the decisions you record and the evidence notes you add, which can mention customers; keep their personal details out.

Ask Kit, the site assistant

Your questions go to an outside AI provider to be answered. Hugo doesn’t store the conversation; your browser keeps it until you close the tab.

What we don’t collect

Social Security numbers, images of government IDs, bank logins or payment card numbers. Please don’t put them in free-text answers.

Where it comes from

• From you, through forms, uploads and Hugo Kit.
• From other Hugo users: a business owner listing their staff for the Data Desk, an expert naming references, and the two sides of an introduction once both agree.
• From public sources: Hugo’s team and Kit read public websites and records about businesses, for example to prepare an evaluation or answer a Hugo Kit job.
• From the research and data providers listed below, when Hugo Kit looks up companies and people.

How we use it

• To run your account, review applications, evaluations and listings, and make the introductions you ask for.
• To run the Data Desk on the instructions of the business that appoints Hugo.
• To answer your questions and run Hugo Kit jobs, using AI and search providers.
• To contact you about your account and, if you opt in, about matches by email or by calls and texts.
• To keep Hugo secure, prevent abuse, keep records of agreements, and meet legal duties.

We don’t sell personal information, share it for targeted advertising, or use what you give us to train AI models. (The Data Desk licenses a business’s own records to AI companies, de-identified, only when that business instructs Hugo to.) Decisions with real effect on you, like approving a listing or an expert, are made by Hugo’s team, not by AI alone.

Who sees it

• Hugo’s team, to review and run the service.
• Other users, as each question says. Investors signed in to Hugo see a listing as its owner approved it; an anonymous listing shows no business name or website. Owners see the investor profile card of anyone who asks for an introduction. Contact details are exchanged only when the owner approves.
• Experts receive your name, email and business name when you ask for an introduction, and your evaluation findings only if you choose to share them.
• Anyone can read an evaluation report you choose to publish, until you withdraw it.
• Data buyers see an anonymous summary, then a datasheet and the approved sample after signing a confidentiality agreement. They learn the business’s name only when a licence is signed.
• Authorities, when the law requires it, and a buyer of Hugo’s business, which would be bound by this policy.

Our service providers

These companies process information for us to run Hugo. They may use it only to provide their service.

• WorkOS: sign-in.
• Cloudflare: hosting, our database, security and request logs.
• OpenRouter, and the AI model providers it sends requests to (such as Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and xAI): Ask Kit, Kit’s reading of Data Desk documents, research, and Hugo Kit.
• Parallel, Brave and Exa: web search for Kit.
• Aviato and OpenAlex: company, people and research data for Hugo Kit.
• Hunter and Tomba: finding and checking work email addresses in Hugo Kit. They receive a person’s name and company domain.

People Hugo Kit finds

When a Hugo Kit user asks Kit to find people (for example possible customers, partners or investors), Kit collects public professional information: name, role, company, location, public profile links, and a work email address it finds and checks. The user sees it in their private workspace and can export it. Hugo doesn’t sell these lists or publish them, and Kit never contacts anyone itself.

If Hugo Kit has information about you and you’d like it removed, email hello@hugoconnects.com. We’ll delete it and stop collecting it.

Cookies and browser storage

Hugo uses cookies only to keep you signed in, on hugoconnects.com and on Hugo Kit. Your browser also stores drafts of forms you haven’t sent, your Ask Kit conversation and a few display settings, on your own device. Hugo has no advertising or analytics trackers and doesn’t follow you to other sites.

How long we keep it

• Your account and profiles: while your account is open.
• Records of agreements, introductions and Data Desk licences: as long as needed to show what was agreed and to resolve disputes, even after you close your account.
• Hugo Kit research: until you delete the job or your account. Cached search results expire on their own.
• Request logs: kept for a short time by Cloudflare to run and secure the service.

When we no longer need information, we delete it or remove what identifies you.

Your choices and rights

• Ask for a copy of your information, a correction, or deletion by emailing hello@hugoconnects.com from your account’s address. We reply within 30 days and may need to check it’s you.
• Turn email about matches and calls or texts on or off in Settings. Reply STOP to any text.
• Withdraw a published evaluation report, or an optional agreement, at any time.

Some US states give their residents these rights by law, and others; we offer them to everyone. Because Hugo doesn’t sell or share personal information for advertising, there’s nothing to opt out of there. If we turn down a request, you can ask us to reconsider by replying to our answer.

Security

Information travels encrypted. Access is limited to the people who need it, private links are stored only in scrambled form, and every agreement is kept with a record of its exact text. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your information, we’ll tell you as the law requires.

Children

Hugo is for adults acting for a business. It isn’t meant for anyone under 18, and we don’t knowingly collect their information.

Where it's processed

Hugo is run from the United States. Our providers may process information in other countries, under their own data protection commitments.

Changes

When this policy changes, we update the date at the top. If a change matters to how we use your information, we’ll ask you to agree again before it applies to you.

Contact

Questions or requests: hello@hugoconnects.com.