Effective date: September 22, 2026 · FundBug LLC · Pittsfield, MA
When you create a FundBug account, we collect your name, email address, and business profile information including your industry, business location, number of employees, annual revenue, years in operation, business ownership characteristics (such as woman-owned or minority-owned status), and other details you provide to improve your matching results.
Some organizations that support small businesses, such as economic councils, chambers of commerce and small business development centers, use FundBug's advisor tools to find funding for the businesses they work with. When an advisor enters details about a business on the owner's behalf, we collect the same kinds of business profile information described above. Advisors agree to enter a business's information only with the owner's permission.
If your FundBug account is provided through an organization, such as a membership benefit, we record which organization sponsors your account so that it can be billed and so that we can report to it as described in Section 3.
All payment processing is handled by Stripe. FundBug does not store your credit card number, CVV, or full payment card details. We receive and retain transaction records including the amount charged, billing date, and last four digits of your card for account management purposes.
We collect information about how you interact with FundBug, including digest delivery timestamps, email open and click events (through SendGrid), feedback signals such as thumbs-up and thumbs-down responses to programs, programs you track or star in My Tracker, application status updates you make, and Application Prep answers you save. This data is used to improve your match results, personalize future Application Prep drafts, and maintain the quality of our program database.
Standard server and access logs may include your IP address, browser type, and referring URLs when you access fundbug.net. This data is used for security and operational monitoring and is not linked to your subscriber profile for marketing purposes.
We use your browser's local storage (localStorage) to keep you signed in to your subscriber portal. We store an authentication token and a small profile cache (your name, email, business name, and subscription status) so the portal loads quickly and doesn't ask you to sign in on every visit. We do not use cookies, localStorage, or any similar mechanism for advertising, third-party tracking, or analytics.
If you provide a business address at signup, we send the address to the U.S. Census Bureau's public geocoding service to derive county, census tract, latitude, longitude, and HUBZone designation. We use this information to filter eligibility for location-based programs (such as HUBZone-restricted federal contracts and Opportunity Zone incentives). The Census Geocoder is a free public service operated by the U.S. federal government; we do not use any commercial geocoding provider, and your address is not sent to advertising networks.
We use the information we collect to:
We do not use your information for advertising purposes. We do not sell your data. We do not use your business information to solicit you on behalf of third parties.
We may combine information from many subscribers into totals and statistics that do not identify any person or business, such as the number of businesses matched to a type of program, or trends in funding by region or industry. We may use and share this de-identified information for any lawful purpose, including reports to sponsoring organizations, research, and publications. We do not attempt to re-identify de-identified information, and we require anyone we share it with not to attempt to either.
AI-generated content (match explanations, eligibility scores, Application Prep answers) is produced by sending relevant portions of your business profile and program data to Anthropic's Claude API. Your data is processed by Anthropic solely to generate a response and is subject to Anthropic's data use policies. We do not use your data to train Anthropic's models.
We share information only in the ways described in this section.
We use the following service providers to operate FundBug:
Each of these providers receives only the data necessary to perform their function.
If an organization sponsors your account, we share with it totals about the sponsored accounts as a group, such as how many members have enrolled, programs matched, and applications and awards reported. We do not share your individual profile, tracker, or application answers with a sponsoring organization unless you give us permission to do so. If an advisor created your business's profile, that advisor's organization can see the profile and the programs matched to it.
We share your personal or business information with other organizations, such as a lender or program administrator you ask us to connect you with, only when you direct us to or give us permission to do so.
If FundBug LLC is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, bankruptcy, or sale of all or part of its business or assets, subscriber information may be transferred to the successor or acquiring organization as part of that transaction, and may be reviewed by a prospective buyer or partner under a duty of confidentiality before the transaction closes. Any successor must handle your information in a way consistent with this Privacy Policy. If a successor intends to use your information in a way that differs materially from this policy, we or the successor will notify you by email beforehand, and you may ask to have your account and information deleted.
We do not sell, rent, or share your personal or business information with any third party for marketing or advertising purposes. A transfer as part of a business transaction described above is not a sale of your data.
We may disclose information if required to do so by law, court order, or regulatory process, or if we believe disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of FundBug, our subscribers, or the public.
We retain your subscriber data for as long as your account is active. If you cancel your subscription, we retain your account data for a reasonable period (typically 12 months) in case you choose to reactivate, after which it may be deleted or anonymized.
Payment records are retained as required for tax and accounting compliance. Feedback signals (thumbs-up/thumbs-down), Tracker data, and Application Prep saved answers are retained to maintain the accuracy of your match preferences and to improve future drafts, even after account cancellation, unless you request deletion.
You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal data at any time by emailing hello@fundbug.net. We will respond within a reasonable timeframe. This includes any profile an advisor created for your business.
You may cancel your subscription at any time through your subscriber portal. You may opt out of non-essential email communications (such as product updates) while remaining subscribed to service-essential emails (such as your digest and billing receipts).
Massachusetts residents have rights under Massachusetts law regarding their personal information. Contact us to exercise any of these rights.
We use industry-standard security practices to protect your data, including encrypted data storage and transmission. Access to subscriber data is restricted to authorized personnel. However, no system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your information.
If you believe your account has been compromised, contact us immediately at hello@fundbug.net.
FundBug is a business-to-business service intended for adults operating small businesses. You must be at least 18 years of age to subscribe, and we ask you to confirm this at signup. We do not knowingly collect or store information from individuals under the age of 18. If we learn that we have inadvertently collected information from a minor, we will delete it promptly.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the effective date above. For material changes, we will notify active subscribers by email. Continued use of the Service after any update constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.
Privacy questions or data requests:
FundBug LLC
82 Wendell Ave, Suite 100
Pittsfield, Massachusetts 01201
hello@fundbug.net