Terms of Use

Please read these terms carefully. These Terms of Use (“Terms”) are a contract between you and Syndicate Room Ltd (“SyndicateRoom”, “we”, “us”). They govern your use of Sonde Data (the “Service”), including our website, free plan, paid subscriptions, exports and any other features we make available. By creating an account, subscribing, or using the Service you confirm that you accept these Terms. The Privacy Notice and the Billing, Refunds & Cancellation page form part of these Terms.

Who we are. Sonde Data is a trading name of Syndicate Room Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 07697935) with its registered office at Wellington House, East Road, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, CB1 1BH. SyndicateRoom is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 613021) for its regulated fund-management activities. The Service is a research and information tool and is not a regulated investment service (see section 8).

Who can use the Service. The Service is designed for professional and business use — in particular by angel investors, fund managers, advisers, founders and other professionals carrying out research on UK companies. You must be at least 18 and, if you use the Service on behalf of an organisation, you must have authority to accept these Terms for it. If you use the Service as a consumer, nothing in these Terms affects your statutory rights, and section 13 applies to you.

1. About the Service

The Service is a research tool that draws on information from the UK Companies House register and other public sources to help you research UK companies, the people connected with them, and their ownership and funding history. It includes tools that derive estimates and tags from that information — for example an indicative share value, an estimated MOIC/IRR for a portfolio, and tags suggesting sector, funding stage or founder identity.

Parts of the Service are visible without an account (limited public company pages). Full functionality requires a registered account, and some features require a paid subscription, as described on our pricing page and in section 3.

2. Your account

• You must register an account to use the Service beyond the limited public pages. The information you give us when registering must be accurate and kept up to date.
• Your account is personal to you. Each account must be used by a single named individual. Keep your login details confidential and do not share your account or credentials with others, including colleagues.
• You may hold one free account. Creating or using multiple accounts to obtain additional free allowances is not permitted (see section 5).
• You are responsible for activity that takes place under your account. Tell us promptly at support@sondedata.com if you suspect any unauthorised access.
• We may suspend or close your account if we reasonably believe these Terms have been breached, or if your use puts the Service, other users or third parties at risk (see section 12).

3. Plans, payment and cancellation

Current plans, prices and inclusions are shown on our pricing page and at checkout. This section sets out how they work; the Billing, Refunds & Cancellation page has a plain-English summary.

Free plan. The free plan includes a fixed lifetime allowance of company lookups (currently three). Opening a company’s page uses one lookup and unlocks full detail for that company; companies you have unlocked remain viewable for as long as you hold an account. The free plan also includes one watchlist with a limited number of companies. We may change what the free plan includes; the pricing page shows the current allowances.

Pro subscription. The Pro subscription is a monthly plan at the price shown at checkout (currently £39 per month, including VAT). It is billed monthly in advance and renews automatically each month until you cancel. Payment is taken by our payment provider, Stripe, through Stripe-hosted checkout and billing pages; we never see or store your full card details.

No free trial. We do not offer a free trial of Pro. Instead, the Free plan lets you look up 3 companies in full detail at no cost and with no card. If you subscribe to Pro, payment is taken immediately and your subscription starts straight away — see Billing & refunds for the 14-day full-refund promise that applies instead.

Cancelling. You can cancel your Pro subscription at any time using the Cancel subscription button on your account page, or by contacting support@sondedata.com. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period: you keep Pro access until then, and no further payments are taken. We do not refund the remainder of a billing period already paid, except where section 13 (consumers), section 11 (withdrawal of the Service) or the law requires otherwise.

After downgrade. When a subscription ends, your account moves to the free plan and its limits apply. Watchlist entries above the free limit are retained but you cannot add more, and company lookups you have already used count towards the free allowance.

Failed payments. If a renewal payment fails, Stripe will retry it. We may keep your access active during a short retry period, and may suspend or downgrade your account if payment cannot be collected.

Price changes. We may change subscription prices. We will give you at least 30 days’ notice by email or through the Service before a price change takes effect, and it will apply only from your next renewal after the notice period. If you do not accept the new price, you can cancel before it takes effect.

4. Data and accuracy

Source data. The Service contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: Companies House. We also use a small amount of publicly available company-level information retrieved via third-party services.

Derived and estimated outputs. Several outputs in the Service are estimates we calculate or tags we apply heuristically. These include, but are not limited to:

• Indicative share value — an estimate produced by applying share prices from SH01 filings to a holding. It does not reflect later funding rounds, dilution, different share classes, buy-backs, or any private arrangements between shareholders.
• Portfolio analysis (MOIC / IRR) — estimates derived by correlating CS01 cap-table changes with SH01 share prices. They are point-in-time estimates from public filings and may differ materially from real returns.
• Tags (for example, founder identity, sector, funding stage) — these are produced by heuristic methods and may be incorrect.

No warranty of accuracy. Companies House filings can themselves contain errors and our parsing of them may also contain errors. We do not warrant that the information in the Service is accurate, complete or current, and you should verify anything you intend to rely on against the original filings or other authoritative sources.

Removal requests from individuals. Individuals named in the Service may ask to be removed (see our Privacy Notice). When we suppress someone’s record, the underlying picture you see may change.

5. Acceptable use

You may use the Service for legitimate professional research — for example, investment screening, due diligence, market mapping and portfolio monitoring.

You must not:

• Scrape or bulk-extract. Do not scrape, crawl, spider, harvest, or systematically or bulk extract, download or copy information from the Service, whether manually or by automated means.
• Use automated access. Do not access the Service using bots, scripts, headless browsers, AI agents or other automated tools, except through interfaces we designate and authorise for that purpose. We may publish official programmatic interfaces in future; those will carry their own terms.
• Circumvent limits. Do not circumvent or attempt to circumvent metering, plan limits, free allowances, authentication, rate limits or other access controls — including by creating or using multiple accounts to obtain additional free lookups.
• Share or resell access. Do not share your account, or resell, sublicense or otherwise make your access available to anyone else.
• Build a competing product. Do not use the Service or its data to create, contribute to, train or improve any dataset, database, product or service that competes with the Service or substitutes for it — including using Service content to train or fine-tune machine-learning or AI models.
• Re-identify individuals. Do not re-identify individuals beyond what is required for legitimate professional research, or attempt to derive personal contact details (such as home addresses) from the information in the Service.
• Redistribute our data as your own. Do not share or onward-distribute Service content except as permitted by section 6.
• Send unsolicited marketing. Do not use the Service for unsolicited marketing to individuals identified through it, or in a way that breaches direct-marketing rules (including UK GDPR and PECR).
• Interfere with the Service. Do not disrupt, reverse-engineer, probe for vulnerabilities, or introduce malicious code.
• Break the law. Do not use the Service in any way that infringes another person’s rights or breaches applicable law.

We may apply rate limits and other technical controls to protect the Service, and may block, suspend or terminate access that we reasonably believe breaches this section. You acknowledge that a breach of this section or section 6 could cause us harm that damages alone would not remedy, and that we may seek injunctive or other equitable relief in addition to any other remedy.

Direct marketing and PECR. If you choose to contact any individual you identify through the Service, you are responsible as an independent controller for ensuring that contact complies with UK GDPR, PECR, and any applicable direct-marketing rules. We do not authorise the use of the Service to build marketing lists.

6. Your licence to use Sonde data

While you have an account in good standing, we grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the information you access through the Service (“Sonde Data”) as follows:

You may:

• view and analyse Sonde Data for your own, or your organisation’s, internal business purposes;
• export Sonde Data using the export features we provide (for example, per-company CSV export on paid plans), for the same purposes; and
• include limited extracts of Sonde Data — individual figures, charts or single-company summaries — in your own work product (reports, memos, presentations, articles, client deliverables), provided the extracts do not substitute for the Service or reproduce a substantial part of our database, and you credit them “Source: Sonde (sondedata.com)” where practicable.

You may not:

• publish, redistribute or make available substantial portions of Sonde Data;
• provide Sonde Data to third parties as, or as part of, a dataset, data feed, API, or product or service of your own;
• systematically combine or accumulate exports so as to recreate a material part of our database or substitute for a subscription; or
• remove or obscure attribution or provenance information.

After your account or subscription ends, you may retain exports made in compliance with these Terms for internal record-keeping and within work product you have already created, but the restrictions above continue to apply to them.

Underlying public data. The underlying Companies House data is public sector information available under the Open Government Licence v3.0, and nothing in these Terms restricts your use of public register data that you obtain directly from Companies House. The restrictions in sections 5 and 6 apply to the Service and to our database, derived outputs, estimates, tags, structure and presentation.

7. Intellectual property

• Our materials. The Service — including its software, design, structure, database, tags, derived outputs and presentation — is owned by or licensed to SyndicateRoom and is protected by copyright, database right and other intellectual property rights. Apart from the licence in section 6, no rights in the Service are granted to you.
• Trade marks. “Sonde”, “Sonde Data” and “SyndicateRoom” are trading names and marks of Syndicate Room Ltd. You may not use them without our prior written consent.
• Companies House data. Underlying Companies House data is public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. You must comply with the OGL terms when using any such data downloaded or copied from the Service.
• Third-party content. The Service may display content (for example, company websites and descriptions) sourced from third parties. We do not own that content; your use of it is subject to the third party’s own terms.
• Feedback. If you give us suggestions or feedback about the Service, you grant us a perpetual, royalty-free licence to use it to improve the Service.

8. Not investment advice or a financial promotion

The Service is informational and research-support only. Nothing in the Service is, or is intended to be:

• investment advice, a personal recommendation or any other regulated investment service;
• a financial promotion, an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity;
• an offer to buy or sell any security or interest, or a solicitation of any such offer; or
• legal, tax, accounting or other professional advice.

Make your own decisions. You must rely on your own due diligence and, where appropriate, take advice from suitably qualified professionals before making any investment decision. Indicative values, MOIC/IRR estimates and tags are research support only, not statements of value or recommendations.

SyndicateRoom’s regulated activities. SyndicateRoom is FCA-authorised for its fund-management activities, which are conducted separately under SyndicateRoom’s regulated terms and disclosures. Your use of the Service does not create any client relationship with SyndicateRoom in respect of those regulated activities.

No Ombudsman or FSCS cover. Because the Service is not a regulated investment service, the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) do not apply to the Service. This does not affect any rights you may have in relation to SyndicateRoom’s separate regulated activities, or your statutory rights as a consumer (see section 13).

9. Privacy

Our handling of personal data is described in the Service’s Privacy Notice. By using the Service you confirm you have read it. Where you use information from the Service to process personal data for your own purposes, you do so as an independent controller and are responsible for your own compliance with UK GDPR and PECR.

10. Availability and changes to the Service

• We aim to keep the Service available and use reasonable efforts to do so, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted availability and no service-level agreement applies.
• We may carry out maintenance and updates that affect availability.
• We may add, change or remove features, data sources, tags and derived outputs as the Service develops. Features labelled “beta” are experimental and may change or be withdrawn at any time.
• If we permanently withdraw the paid Service, or remove a core paid feature in a way that materially reduces its value, we will refund a pro-rata portion of any fees you have prepaid for the affected period.

11. Suspension and termination

• You can stop using the Service and close your account at any time from your account settings or by contacting us.
• We can suspend or terminate your access, in whole or in part, if we reasonably believe you have breached these Terms, if continued use poses a risk to the Service or other users, if payment due from you cannot be collected, or if we are required to do so by law. Where practicable and appropriate, we will tell you why.
• On termination, your right to use the Service ends and section 6 governs any exported data you hold. Sections of these Terms that by their nature should survive (for example, sections 5–8 and 12–15) continue after termination.

12. Limitation of liability

Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited under English law (including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud), and nothing in these Terms affects a consumer’s statutory rights or remedies.

Subject to that:

• The Service is provided “as is” and, so far as the law allows, we exclude all implied warranties (including as to accuracy, completeness, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement).
• We are not liable for any loss arising from your reliance on outputs of the Service, including investment losses, missed opportunities, or losses caused by inaccurate, incomplete or out-of-date information.
• We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profits, loss of revenue, loss of business, loss of anticipated savings, loss of goodwill, or loss of data.
• Our total aggregate liability to you under or in connection with these Terms in any twelve-month period is limited to the greater of (a) the fees you paid for the Service in that period and (b) £100.

If you are a consumer. We are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our failing to provide the Service with reasonable care and skill, or of our breaking this contract. We are not responsible for loss that was not foreseeable, for loss caused by relying on outputs contrary to section 4’s guidance to verify against original filings, or for business losses. The cap in this section does not apply to you. Nothing in this paragraph limits your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Professional users. Because the Service is intended for professional use and its outputs are estimates and heuristics, you accept that exercising your own judgement and verification is part of using it properly.

13. If you are a consumer

This section applies if you use the Service as a consumer — that is, wholly or mainly outside your trade, business, craft or profession.

• Statutory rights. You have rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, including that digital services be supplied with reasonable care and skill. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits those rights.
• Our liability to you. Section 12 sets out what we are and are not responsible for if you are a consumer, and disapplies the liability cap in that section for you.
• 14-day cancellation right. When you first take out a paid subscription, you have 14 days to change your mind. Because your subscription starts immediately, you ask us to begin supplying the Service during that period. Although the law would let us deduct a proportionate amount for the period you had access, we don't: if you cancel within the 14 days of your first subscription we refund what you paid in full, and your access ends when we do. To cancel, use the Cancel subscription button on your account page or email support@sondedata.com. If you subscribe again after cancelling, your statutory 14-day cancellation right still applies to the new subscription — a refund of what you paid less a proportionate charge for the days you had access — on request to support@sondedata.com; the automatic full refund above applies to your first subscription only.
• Courts and law. These Terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, but if you live elsewhere in the UK you may rely on any mandatory consumer protections of your home nation and bring proceedings in its courts.

14. Your responsibility for misuse

If you use the Service in the course of a business and breach section 5 or 6, you agree to compensate us for losses, damages and costs (including reasonable legal costs) that we reasonably incur as a result of the breach. This section does not apply to consumers.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If a change is material, we will give you at least 30 days’ notice by email or through the Service before it takes effect, and if you do not accept it you can cancel your subscription or close your account before the change applies. Minor changes — for example to reflect new features, legal requirements or security needs — may take effect immediately. Continuing to use the Service after a change takes effect means you accept the updated Terms.

16. Other legal terms

• Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Notice and the Billing, Refunds & Cancellation page, are the entire agreement between you and SyndicateRoom in relation to the Service.
• No waiver. If we delay or do not enforce a right under these Terms, that does not waive it.
• Severability. If any part of these Terms is held to be unenforceable, the rest will continue in force.
• Assignment. You may not transfer your rights under these Terms without our consent. We may transfer ours, including to a successor entity or as part of a corporate transaction; we will notify you if this happens.
• Events outside our control. We are not responsible for failure or delay caused by events outside our reasonable control.
• Third parties. These Terms do not give rights to third parties under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.
• Governing law and jurisdiction. These Terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. For business users, the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction, except that we may bring proceedings against you in any jurisdiction where you operate. For consumers, section 13 applies.

17. Contact

Questions about these Terms or the Service can be sent to support@sondedata.com. Privacy questions and rights requests go to privacy@sondedata.com — see the Privacy Notice.