Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of terms

These Terms of Service govern your access to and use of Open Venture — the innovation-management platform operated by Open Venture GmbH ("we", "us"). By creating an account, joining an organization, or using the platform in any way, you agree to be bound by these terms and by our Privacy Policy. If you use Open Venture on behalf of an organization, you confirm you have authority to bind that organization.

2. Accounts & eligibility

One person, one account. Accounts are personal and may not be shared, sold, or transferred.

You must be at least 18 years old and provide accurate registration information. You are responsible for safeguarding your credentials and for all activity under your account. Notify us immediately at the first sign of unauthorized use — you can revoke individual sessions at any time from your security settings.

3. Organizations & workspaces

Organizations control their own workspaces, membership, and roles. Organization admins may add, suspend, or remove members and set permissions; we act on their instructions for organization-scoped data. Content you post inside an organization's workspace belongs to the governance rules of that organization.

4. Challenges, submissions & intellectual property

Your submission stays yours.

Submitting an entry to a challenge or event never transfers ownership of your intellectual property. You grant the hosting organization a limited license to review and evaluate the entry for the purposes of the challenge, and you grant us the license needed to display it inside the platform. Hosts must state prize, scope, and evaluation criteria in the challenge brief and honor them. Any pilot, licensing, or investment agreement that follows a challenge is between you and the host — negotiated outside these terms.

5. Sponsorships & payments

Startups and partners join free — we never charge applicants to enter a challenge.

Open Venture is funded by corporate subscriptions and event sponsorships. Sponsorship fees are invoiced per the sponsorship agreement, are exclusive of taxes, and are non-refundable once the sponsored event has been published.

6. Acceptable use

Don't misuse the platform. That includes: submitting content you have no right to share; scraping or bulk-exporting other members' data; misrepresenting your identity or affiliation; interfering with the service or its security features; and using the platform to send spam or unsolicited offers. We may remove content or suspend accounts that violate this section.

7. Confidentiality

Challenge submissions are visible only to the hosting organization's review team and platform administrators. Reviewers act under a duty of confidentiality: information from a submission may be used only to evaluate it. Do not include trade secrets in a submission unless the host has explicitly agreed to confidential treatment in the brief.

8. Disclaimers & liability

The platform is provided "as is". We do not guarantee that any challenge leads to a pilot, investment, or partnership, and we are not a party to agreements formed between members. To the maximum extent permitted by law, our aggregate liability is limited to the amounts paid to us by your organization in the twelve months before the claim.

9. Termination

You may delete your account at any time from Settings. We may suspend or terminate accounts that materially breach these terms, with notice where practicable. On termination, your right to use the platform ends; sections that by their nature survive (IP, confidentiality, liability) continue to apply.

10. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the platform evolves. For material changes we give at least 30 days' notice by email and in-app, and ask you to re-accept. The version number and effective date at the top of this page always identify the terms in force.