Privacy Policy

Seen Capital, Inc. (Delaware, USA), together with its local operating entities in each market, such as Seen Capital Rwanda Limited (Kigali) (collectively "Seen Capital", "we"), provides working capital and an AI business coach to small businesses in emerging markets. Our capital is not a loan: in return, Seen receives a share of the business's sales, and that share stops earning at a limit written into your agreement.

You use Seen through the Seen app: the web app at app.seen.new and the Seen app for Android. This policy explains what personal information we handle, why, who sees it and the choices you have. If anything is unclear, write to hello@seen.new and a person will answer.

What we collect

• Contact and identity details. Your name, phone number, language, and the country and area where your business operates. These usually come from you or from the partner organisation that introduced you.
• Identity checks. Before any funding, we ask for a photo of your identity document and a photo of your face. Our identity-verification provider checks that the document is genuine and that the face matches it. We keep the result, the document details and the photos.
• Your application and your business. Your answers to our questions, your interview, and the check-ins you send after funding, including your sales figures and, if you choose, photos of your stock or cash.
• Voice. When you choose to speak instead of type, we record what you say and turn it into text. Your interview is recorded, with your consent, and so are consents you choose to give by voice. You can always type instead.
• Messages. Your conversation with Seen's coach and support inside the app.
• The people you name. If you name backers who know your business, we hold their names, phone numbers, how they know you, and their answers. See People you name below.
• Payment details. The mobile money account you nominate, and the record of payments between us.
• Device and app information. Your phone's model, system and app version, network type, a notification token so we can alert you, and error reports when something goes wrong. The Android app asks for the microphone, for voice, and for notifications. It does not read your contacts, your text messages or your location.
• Optional session recordings. In some test sessions we ask whether we may record your screen and sound while you use the app, to find and fix problems. Both are off unless you tick them, and you are asked again each session.
• Contact form. If you write to us through the form on seen.new, the details you choose to share.

Why we use it

• To assess your application and to provide the capital and coach you asked for.
• To confirm who you are and to prevent fraud, including someone else using your account or your funding.
• To meet our legal obligations, including checking names against sanctions lists and anti-money-laundering rules.
• To keep an accurate record of what was offered, understood and agreed, including your agreement and your consent. That record protects you as much as us.
• To send you sign-in codes and notices by SMS or notification. A notice only tells you there is something to read in the app.
• To improve the service. We study how people use the app across many participants together. How any one person uses the app is never used to change that person's terms.

How decisions are made

Decisions on applications and funding are made by AI systems working inside fixed limits that our policies set. Some cases always go to a person: for example when information conflicts, when a case is borderline, or when you ask. Every decision is logged. You can ask for a person at Seen to review any decision about you by writing to hello@seen.new.

People you name

When you name backers, we contact each of them by SMS to ask whether they agree. They can say no. If they agree, they see your first name and your milestones, never your amounts, and we ask them a short question about your business from time to time. A backer can stop at any time and can ask us to delete their details, in the same way as described below.

Who sees it

• Our team and systems, including AI systems that assess applications and run the coach, always under this policy.
• The partner organisation that introduced you, for the parts of the process they support you with, such as whether you applied and how far you have got.
• Service providers that work for us and may use your information only to provide their service to us. They include: hosting and databases (Vercel, Supabase); identity verification (Smile ID); sanctions screening (ComplyAdvantage); mobile money payments (such as DusuPay and pawaPay); SMS (Twilio, Africa's Talking); notifications (Google Firebase); AI processing of text and voice (such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google); voice sessions (LiveKit); and error monitoring (Sentry).
• Authorities, when the law requires it.
• We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for advertising.

Seen no longer uses WhatsApp to talk to applicants or participants.

Where it is kept, and how it is protected

Your information is stored on servers in the United States and may be processed there and in other countries where our service providers work. We protect it in line with the law of your country. It travels encrypted, access is limited to people and systems that need it, and recordings and photos are kept in private storage.

How long we keep it

We keep application, agreement and payment records for as long as you take part and for a limited period afterwards, as the law requires or permits. Recordings connected to your agreement and consent are kept for the life of the agreement plus a limited period. Other recordings and session recordings are kept only as long as needed for the purposes above.

Deleting your account and your data

You can ask us to delete your Seen account and your personal information at any time. How to ask, what we delete, and what the law requires us to keep are set out on Delete your Seen account.

Your rights and how to reach us

You can ask what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, object to how we use it, withdraw a consent you gave (for example to recordings), and ask for a person to review a decision. We handle personal information in line with the data-protection laws of each market where we operate, including Rwanda's law on the protection of personal data and privacy and Ghana's Data Protection Act. To exercise any right, or to complain, contact hello@seen.new. You can also complain to the data-protection authority in your country.

Children

Seen is for adults aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect information from children.

Changes

If we change this policy, the version and date above change, and the current version always lives at this address. If a change affects you materially, we will tell you in the app.