Terms of Service

1. Who we are and what these terms cover

UnicornBurn ("we", "us", the "platform") operates a startup failure intelligence platform for VCs and investors: a structured dataset of documented business failures with associated risk-matching, portfolio-monitoring and reporting tools (the "Intelligence" services).

Legal entity: Unicorn Burn LTD, 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom

These Terms of Service (the "Terms") form a binding agreement between you and UnicornBurn governing your access to and use of the website, dataset, APIs, risk matching, portfolio monitoring, reports and the simulator. By creating an account, subscribing to a plan, or otherwise using the platform, you accept these Terms and our Privacy Policy.

If you do not agree with these Terms, do not use the platform.

2. Eligibility and account registration

You must be at least 18 years old to register. By creating an account you confirm that the information you provide is accurate and that you have authority to bind any organisation on whose behalf you act.

You are responsible for safeguarding your credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account. Notify us immediately at hello@unicornburn.com if you suspect unauthorised use.

Team accounts may add members under the roles defined in the product (owner, admin, analyst, finance). The account owner is responsible for the actions of all members.

3. The dataset and Intelligence services

The dataset contains editorially-assigned analytical fields (such as collapse style, hype cycle and cause categories) describing companies that have closed or been liquidated. Depending on your plan, you may access the dataset, run risk matching against historical collapses, monitor portfolio companies, configure alerts and generate reports.

Plan limits — including request quotas, number of risk assessments, seats and portfolio capacity — are described on the pricing page and may be enforced programmatically.

The free Open Data tier is provided for research, journalism and academic use, subject to attribution and the usage limits stated for that tier.

3a. Data quality and editorial standards

UnicornBurn maintains a curated database of 6,842+ documented business failures. Every case goes through an editorial review process before it is published: we verify the facts of the failure against publicly available documentation and assign analytical fields — including collapse style, cause category, hype cycle, and survival timeline — based on that evidence.

Cases that cannot be substantiated against verifiable public records are either marked as unverified or excluded entirely. Our editorial team continuously reviews and updates entries as new information becomes available.

Our risk-matching algorithm has been backtested against documented outcomes across thousands of historical cases. Scores reflect the degree of structural similarity between a given company profile and profiles in our failure database — they are a signal derived from real-world evidence, not a model trained on synthetic data.

For a detailed explanation of how scores are computed, see our Methodology page.

4. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Resell, sublicense or redistribute the dataset or reports beyond the rights granted by your plan.
• Scrape, bulk-download or circumvent rate limits, quotas or access controls.
• Reverse engineer the platform or attempt to extract source code or proprietary scoring logic.
• Use the services to defame, harass, or unlawfully target any individual named in the dataset.
• Upload personal data of third parties that you are not authorised to share.
• Use the platform to build a competing failure-intelligence product.

5. Subscriptions, billing and trials

Paid plans are billed monthly or annually through Stripe, our payment processor. Prices are shown in euros and exclude any applicable taxes unless stated otherwise. We accept card and SEPA Direct Debit payments.

Free trials, where offered, last 7 days. Unless you cancel before the trial ends, your subscription will convert to a paid plan and the applicable fee will be charged. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period until cancelled.

You authorise us, via Stripe, to charge your selected payment method for recurring fees. If a payment fails, we may suspend access until the balance is settled.

6. Cancellation and refunds

You may cancel at any time from your billing settings. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period; you retain access until then. We do not provide pro-rata refunds for partial periods except where required by applicable law.

Consumers in the EU may have statutory withdrawal rights. Where you expressly request immediate access to a digital service and acknowledge the loss of the withdrawal right, that right may not apply once the service has begun.

7. Intellectual property and licence

All content, structure, analytical fields, software and trademarks of UnicornBurn are owned by us or our licensors and are protected by intellectual-property law. Subject to these Terms and your plan, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the platform and the data for your internal business, research or analytical purposes.

Reports, exports and outputs you generate may be used for your own internal use and shared with your clients or stakeholders as part of your normal professional activity, provided you do not redistribute the underlying dataset as a standalone product.

7a. Database rights — Directive 96/9/EC & UK CDPA 1988

The UnicornBurn database is protected by the sui generis database right established in EU Directive 96/9/EC on the legal protection of databases. In the United Kingdom, equivalent protection is afforded by Chapter III of Schedule 2 to the Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997 (SI 1997/3032), implementing the retained database right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988). Substantial investment has been made in obtaining, verifying and presenting the contents of this database, and Unicorn Burn LTD holds the rights of a database maker for a period of 15 years from the date of completion, renewed upon substantial investment.

You may not extract or re-utilise a substantial part of the database — whether in a single operation or through repeated extractions — without prior written authorisation. Systematic scraping, bulk download via API, or any technical means designed to circumvent access controls are prohibited. Repeated extraction of insubstantial parts that collectively constitute a substantial part is equally prohibited.

For the full terms of our database rights — including permitted uses, attribution requirements, and licensing enquiries — see our Database Rights page.

8. Intelligence outputs — scope and limitations

UnicornBurn is a pattern-matching intelligence tool. Our risk scores and structural matches are derived from a database of real, documented failures and are designed to surface meaningful signals for investment due diligence. They are not a replacement for primary research.

While we maintain editorial standards and verify entries against publicly available documentation, we do not warrant that the data is complete or error-free for every use case. Risk scores are analytical estimates, not investment advice, and do not constitute a prediction of any company's future performance.

Think of UnicornBurn the way you would use any professional intelligence platform — as a structured signal to inform and focus your own analysis, not as a standalone decision-making system. You are responsible for verifying outputs and conducting independent due diligence before acting on any finding.

8a. API and dataset — permitted use

Access to the UnicornBurn dataset and API is granted for the following permitted uses: academic and non-commercial research, investigative journalism, educational content, and developer tools that include proper attribution.

The dataset may not be used as a primary or standalone source for:

• Investment or acquisition decisions
• Financial due diligence reports provided to third parties
• Credit scoring or lending decisions
• Training machine learning models for commercial redistribution
• Bulk redistribution or resale of the dataset

Risk scores and pattern matches are analytical estimates derived from historical data. They reflect patterns in past failures and do notconstitute investment advice, financial analysis, or a prediction of any company's future performance or viability. Always conduct independent professional due diligence before making investment decisions.

9. Use of AI systems — EU AI Act

UnicornBurn uses AI in two ways: (a) a proprietary pattern-matching algorithm (Naive Bayes ensemble + cosine similarity) that computes structural similarity between a company profile and our failure database; and (b) a general-purpose language model (Anthropic Claude) that generates text outputs such as IC memos, LP narratives and due-diligence questions.

Classification under the EU AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689, obligations applicable from August 2026): UnicornBurn is a decision-support tool for professional investors and does not fall within the high-risk categories of Annex III. It does not evaluate the creditworthiness of natural persons, employment eligibility, access to public services, or any other category that would constitute a high-risk AI system. No automated decision with binding legal effect is made about any individual through the platform. Investment decisions remain entirely with the investor at all times.

Verified autopsies and human oversight: Autopsies are marked as verified only after manual editorial review by a member of our team. No case receives verified status through an automated process alone. This human oversight layer is maintained regardless of the volume of the dataset.

AI-generated content: Where the platform generates text content using a language model (IC memos, LP narratives, due-diligence questions), such outputs are analytical starting points and must be reviewed and validated by you before use in any professional context. You are solely responsible for any use you make of those outputs.

10. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, UnicornBurn shall not be liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data or business opportunity arising from your use of the platform.

Our total aggregate liability for any claim relating to the services shall not exceed the amounts you paid to us in the 12 months preceding the event giving rise to the claim. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law.

11. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or terminate your access if you breach these Terms, fail to pay, or use the platform in a way that risks harm to us, other users or third parties. You may stop using the platform and close your account at any time.

On termination, your licence ends and we may deactivate your credentials. Provisions that by their nature should survive (intellectual property, disclaimers, liability) will continue to apply.

12. Accessibility

We are committed to digital accessibility. The public site aims to conform to WCAG 2.2 Level AA and the European standard EN 301 549, in line with the European Accessibility Act (Directive 2019/882), applicable since 28 June 2025. Our full Accessibility Statement sets out our conformance status, known limitations, and compatible assistive technologies.

If you encounter an accessibility barrier, or need content in an alternative format, contact hello@unicornburn.com; we aim to respond within 5 business days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact the competent national accessibility authority.

13. Changes, governing law and contact

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes we will notify you by email or in-product at least 14 days in advance. Continued use after the change takes effect constitutes acceptance.

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, without prejudice to mandatory consumer-protection rules of your country of residence. Disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales, save where mandatory local law requires otherwise.

General enquiries: hello@unicornburn.com

Legal notices: legal@unicornburn.com