Privacy Policy

Who we are

Ventra (Ventra) provides UK grant and funding matching services. We are the data controller for the information described in this policy. For any privacy enquiry, contact support@ventraonline.uk.

What we collect, and when

Finding matches (free)

To rank funding schemes we ask for your company name, industry, business description, postcode, employee count, company age, turnover band, business stage and funding goal. When you run a free search this profile is used to generate your results and returned to your browser — we do not save it to our database. It stays on your device unless you go on to buy something or subscribe.

Purchases

When you buy an Application Prep Pack, Top 3 Grant Bundle or Eligibility Report, we store a purchase record on our servers containing your email address (from Stripe checkout), the grant concerned, the amount paid, the payment status, and a snapshot of the business profile and answers used to generate what you bought. We store this so you can retrieve your purchase later and so we have a record of the transaction.

Grant Monitor subscription

If you subscribe to Grant Monitor, we store your email address and your full business profile on our servers, and re-run matching against it on a schedule. We have to keep the profile for the subscription to work — it is what the weekly email is based on. We also record which grants we have already told you about, so we don't repeat them.

Deadline reminders

If you ask for a reminder, we store your email address alongside the grant and its deadline so we can email you before it closes.

Contact form

Your name, email, topic and message are emailed to our support address. They are not stored in our database.

Access links

To let you recover purchases on another device we store your email address with a hashed, single-use access link and an expiry time. We never store the link itself.

Lawful bases for processing

Under UK GDPR we rely on the following:

• Contract — processing your profile to deliver matches, packs, reports, reminders and the Grant Monitor subscription you asked for, and keeping purchase records so you can access what you paid for.
• Legitimate interests — understanding how the product is used so we can improve it, and protecting the service from abuse and fraud. We balance this against your interests and keep the data minimal.
• Legal obligation — retaining transaction records to meet UK tax and accounting requirements.

Analytics

We record product usage events — such as a profile being submitted, matches being generated, or checkout being started — on our servers, not only in your browser. Each event is stored with a randomly generated identifier that is kept in your browser's local storage so we can tell which events belong to the same visit, plus the grant concerned and non-identifying details such as a match score or funding type.

These events do not include your name, email address or full company description, and we do not share them with advertising networks or use them to build a marketing profile of you. Because a copy is held on our servers, clearing your browser storage stops further linking to that identifier but does not delete events we have already recorded. To have those deleted, email support@ventraonline.uk and we will remove them.

Payment processing

Payments are processed by Stripe. We never see or store your card details. Stripe handles payment data under its own privacy policy and PCI-DSS obligations. We receive confirmation of payment, your email address, and basic transaction metadata (such as the grant identifier) so we can unlock and later restore your purchase.

AI processing

After a purchase is confirmed, we send the grant details and the business profile you provided to Google's Gemini API to generate your tailored Application Prep Pack or Bundle. This happens only for paid products.

Free features do not use AI: your match results, match reasoning, the free guidance preview and profile autofill are all produced by our own rules-based logic on our servers. We do not send your information to an AI provider unless you have bought a pack.

Browser storage

We do not use advertising or third-party tracking cookies. We do use your browser's local storage to hold your profile draft, your latest results, saved grants, your purchase access session, and the analytics identifier described above. Our Cookies and local storage page lists exactly what is stored, why, and how to clear it.

Who we share your information with

We do not sell your data. We share it only with the providers we need to run the service, each acting on our instructions:

• Stripe — payments, subscriptions and billing.
• Supabase — our database, where purchases, subscriptions, reminders, access links and analytics events are stored.
• Vercel — hosting for the website and API.
• Google (Gemini API) — generating paid pack content only.
• Resend — sending access links, purchase confirmations, reminders and Grant Monitor emails.

We may also disclose information where we are legally required to, or to establish or defend legal claims.

International transfers

Some of the providers above process data outside the UK, including in the United States. Where information is transferred outside the UK, it is protected by a UK adequacy decision, the UK International Data Transfer Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, or an equivalent safeguard offered by that provider. You can ask us for details of the safeguard that applies by emailing support@ventraonline.uk.

Data retention

• Free searches — not stored on our servers at all. The profile stays in your browser until you clear it.
• Purchase records — kept for as long as you may need access to what you bought and to meet UK tax and accounting requirements, which generally means six years from the transaction.
• Grant Monitor — your profile is kept while the subscription is active. After cancellation we keep the record so we can answer billing questions; ask us and we will delete it.
• Reminders — kept until the reminder has been sent or the deadline has passed.
• Access links — links expire 15 minutes after being issued, and access sessions expire after 7 days.
• Analytics events — kept while they remain useful for understanding and improving the product.

Where we are not legally required to keep something, you can ask us to delete it sooner and we will.

How we protect your information

The site is served over HTTPS. Access links are stored only as hashes, so a copy of our database does not reveal a working link. Purchase and subscription records are reachable only through our server, never directly from the browser, and administrative endpoints require a separate secret. No service can promise perfect security, but we aim to collect as little as possible and to keep what we do collect locked down.

Your rights (UK)

Under UK data protection law you have the right to access your data, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict or object to processing, and to receive it in a portable form. Where we rely on legitimate interests, you can object and we will stop unless we have compelling grounds to continue.

To exercise any of these, email support@ventraonline.ukwith the subject line “Data request”. We will respond within one month. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk, though we would appreciate the chance to put things right first.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page will change when we do. If a change materially affects how we use your information, we will make that clear rather than rely on the date alone.