Terms of Use

FundedBy — fundedby.co Version 1.0 · Effective from 15 September 2026

1. Provider and scope

1.1 FundedBy is operated by Stonebode Labs UG (haftungsbeschränkt), Brühl 9a, 04109 Leipzig, Germany, registered at Amtsgericht Leipzig under HRB 46112, represented by its Managing Director Dmytro Shapovalov ("FundedBy", "we").

1.2 These Terms govern use of the platform at fundedby.co and its subdomains, including the funding registry, user profiles, the activity feed, opportunity listings, applications and messaging (together, the "Platform").

1.3 These Terms apply to the exclusion of any terms of the user. Deviating or supplementary terms apply only where we have agreed to them in text form.

1.4 We may amend these Terms. Registered users will be notified at least thirty days before an amended version takes effect. If a user does not object in text form before that date, the amended version is deemed accepted; we will say so in the notification. Where a user objects, either party may terminate the user agreement with effect from the date the amendment takes effect.

2. Who may use the Platform

2.1 The Platform is directed exclusively at entrepreneurs within the meaning of sec. 14 German Civil Code (BGB), legal persons under public law, public-law special funds, non-profit organisations and other institutions. It is not directed at consumers. By registering, the user confirms that they act in the exercise of their commercial or independent professional activity, or on behalf of an organisation.

2.2 Users must be at least 18 years old and have full legal capacity.

2.3 Anyone registering on behalf of an organisation warrants that they are authorised to do so and to bind that organisation to these Terms.

3. Registration and account

3.1 Use of the Platform beyond the public pages requires registration. Authentication is operated by an external identity provider; details are in our Privacy Policy.

3.2 The user agreement comes into existence when the account is activated.

3.3 Users must provide accurate and complete information and keep it up to date. Pseudonymous or fictitious identities, and profiles created for a person who has not consented, are not permitted.

3.4 Each natural person may hold one personal account. Access credentials must be kept confidential and must not be shared. Suspected misuse must be reported to us without undue delay.

3.5 We may refuse registration without stating reasons.

3.6 Self-service account deletion is not yet available in the product. Until it is, we delete accounts on request, without delay and free of charge (clause 11.2).

4. What FundedBy is, and what it is not

4.1 FundedBy provides a technical platform. It lets users find information about public funding programmes, publish and find opportunities (projects, assignments, roles, partnership requests), present themselves through profiles, and make contact with one another.

4.2 We are not a party to any agreement concluded between users. Where a user engages an expert, agency or contractor found through the Platform, that contract exists solely between those users. We owe no performance under it, assume no liability for it, and act neither as a representative nor as a guarantor for either side.

4.3 We do not provide legal, tax, funding or investment advice. Nothing on the Platform constitutes advice within the meaning of the German Legal Services Act (RDG) or the Tax Advisory Act (StBerG). Information on the Platform supports a decision; it does not replace one.

4.4 No entitlement to funding arises from use of the Platform. Whether an applicant receives funding is decided exclusively by the competent funding body under its own rules and procedure.

4.5 Funding information is provided for orientation. Registry entries are compiled from publicly available sources and structured editorially; AI tools were used in that preparation to normalise and summarise public programme texts. Deadlines, budgets, eligibility criteria and procedures change frequently, and our rendering may be incomplete, outdated or wrong in detail. The official publication of the respective funding body always prevails. Every entry links to its source, and users must verify every material detail there before acting on it.

4.6 Timing of applications. Many funding programmes require that the funded measure has not yet begun when the application is submitted, and treat an order, a contract or an advance payment as the start of the measure. Observing such requirements is solely the user's responsibility. We give no assurance in this regard.

4.7 The Platform is in an early stage of development. Functions may be added, changed, restricted or discontinued, in particular for technical, legal or economic reasons.

5. User content

5.1 "User content" means everything a user uploads, posts or transmits: profile information, posts, comments, reactions, opportunity listings, applications, messages, files and images.

5.2 Users remain the owners of their content. By publishing content on the Platform, the user grants us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, transferable and sublicensable right, limited in time to the duration of publication, to store, reproduce, technically adapt, translate, display, distribute and make that content available, to the extent necessary to operate and present the Platform and its functions — including in search, feeds, matching, notifications and previews.

5.3 Users warrant that they hold all rights required for that grant and that the content infringes no third-party rights, in particular copyright, trade mark, personality and data protection rights.

5.4 The user is responsible for their content. We do not adopt user content as our own. We are not obliged to monitor content generally or to investigate circumstances indicating illegal activity (Art. 8 Regulation (EU) 2022/2065).

5.5 On deletion of content or of an account, we cease to display the content. Copies may remain temporarily in backups, and content quoted or reshared by other users may remain visible in their context.

5.6 Content published on the Platform is visible to logged-in users. Users should not treat it as confidential towards the platform community.

6. Rules of conduct

6.1 Users must not publish, transmit or make accessible content which:

a) is unlawful, in particular insulting, defamatory, inciting hatred, glorifying violence, infringing third-party rights or breaching criminal law; b) is pornographic or harmful to minors; c) misrepresents identity, professional qualification, track record or affiliation; d) contains malware or is designed to disrupt the Platform; e) is advertising unrelated to the purpose of the Platform, chain messages, or unsolicited mass communication; f) contains personal data of third parties without a legal basis; g) offers services the user is not permitted to provide, in particular legal or tax services requiring authorisation.

6.2 Users must not:

a) access the Platform by automated means, scrape it, or systematically read out, copy or reuse its database or substantial parts of it; b) circumvent, disable or interfere with security features or access restrictions; c) use contact data obtained through the Platform for any purpose other than the specific business contact in question, in particular for unsolicited advertising or for building third-party databases; d) create or use accounts on behalf of others, sell accounts, or transfer them.

6.3 The right of the database maker under sec. 87b German Copyright Act (UrhG) in the funding registry, and our rights in its structure, normalisation and enrichment, remain reserved.

7. Charges

7.1 The Platform is currently free of charge. There are no paid functions.

7.2 We may introduce paid functions in future — for example extended search, additional opportunity postings, promotion of listings or team accounts. Paid functions will be marked as such, with their price, before any order is placed, and the terms governing them will be published before they go live. Nothing a user already uses free of charge becomes chargeable retroactively.

7.3 Where paid functions are introduced, prices will be stated exclusive of statutory value added tax unless indicated otherwise, and the reverse charge procedure will apply to business users established in another EU Member State who supply a valid VAT identification number.

8. Availability

8.1 We aim for high availability but do not owe a specific uptime. Maintenance, technical faults and events outside our control may cause interruptions. Planned maintenance will be announced in advance where reasonably possible.

8.2 No availability guarantee is given for services provided free of charge.

9. Reporting illegal content, moderation and enforcement

This clause implements our obligations under Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (Digital Services Act).

9.1 Reporting. Any person may report content they consider illegal, by email to [email protected] or through the reporting function provided with each item of content. A report should contain a sufficiently substantiated explanation of why the content is illegal, the exact URL or other precise indication of where it is, the name and email address of the person reporting (except for certain offences against sexual self-determination), and a statement of good faith that the information is accurate and complete.

9.2 Handling. We confirm receipt without undue delay, review each report in a timely, diligent, non-arbitrary and objective manner, and inform the reporting party of our decision and of the available means of redress. Where a decision is supported by automated means, we will say so.

9.3 Measures. Where content breaches the law or these Terms, we may — depending on the seriousness of the breach, whether it is repeated, and the interests involved — remove the content or disable access to it, restrict its visibility, issue a warning, restrict functions, suspend the account temporarily, or terminate the user agreement. We will choose the least intrusive appropriate measure.

9.4 Statement of reasons. Where we remove or restrict user content, we give the affected user a clear and specific statement of reasons, including the legal or contractual ground, the facts relied on, and how the decision can be challenged.

9.5 Challenging a decision. An affected user may object within six months, in text form to [email protected]. We review the decision and reverse it without undue delay where the objection is justified. Recourse to the courts, and out-of-court dispute settlement under Art. 21 DSA, remain unaffected.

9.6 Misuse. After prior warning, we may suspend for a reasonable period the accounts of users who frequently publish manifestly illegal content, and the processing of reports from persons who frequently submit manifestly unfounded reports (Art. 23 DSA).

9.7 Where we are legally required to remove content or to provide information to a competent authority, we will do so and will inform the affected user to the extent permitted.

10. Liability

10.1 We are liable without limitation for damage arising from injury to life, body or health, for intent and gross negligence, under the German Product Liability Act, and where we have given a guarantee.

10.2 In cases of slight negligence, we are liable only for breach of a duty whose fulfilment is essential to proper performance of the contract and on whose observance the user may regularly rely (a cardinal duty). In that case liability is limited to the foreseeable damage typical for this type of contract.

10.3 Any further liability is excluded. In particular, we are not liable for:

a) the accuracy, completeness or currency of funding information (clause 4.5), nor for decisions of funding bodies; b) the content, conduct, qualification, solvency or performance of other users; c) contracts concluded between users, or their fulfilment; d) loss of funding, loss of profit, or expenditure incurred in reliance on information found on the Platform; e) loss of data, where the damage would have been avoided by regular and complete backups by the user.

10.4 For services provided free of charge, our liability is further limited to intent and gross negligence.

10.5 These limitations also apply in favour of our employees, representatives and agents.

10.6 Users indemnify us against third-party claims, including reasonable costs of legal defence, arising from their content or from their breach of these Terms, unless the user is not responsible for the breach.

11. Term and termination

11.1 The user agreement runs for an indefinite period.

11.2 Users may terminate at any time without notice, in text form to [email protected] or, once available in the product, by deleting the account.

11.3 We may terminate with fourteen days' notice.

11.4 The right of either party to terminate for cause remains unaffected. Cause exists for us in particular where a user seriously or repeatedly breaches clause 6, or provided false information on registration.

11.5 On termination, the account and associated content are deleted in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Users are responsible for exporting their own data beforehand.

12. Final provisions

12.1 German law applies, to the exclusion of the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.

12.2 Where the user is a merchant, a legal person under public law or a public-law special fund, the exclusive place of jurisdiction is Leipzig, Germany. We are also entitled to sue at the user's general place of jurisdiction.

12.3 We are neither obliged nor willing to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.

12.4 Should any provision be or become invalid, the remaining provisions are unaffected.

12.5 These Terms are published in English, and the English version is authoritative. Where we publish a translation, it is provided for convenience only.