Legal

Sellvara Privacy Policy

Version 1.0. Effective date October 31, 2026.

Sellvara Inc. ("Sellvara", "we", "us" or "our") respects your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose and protect personal information when you use sellvara.com and our related services (the "Platform"), and the choices and rights you have. We comply with Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). The Platform is not offered in Quebec.

1. Who is responsible

Sellvara is responsible for personal information under its control. We have designated a Privacy Officer who is accountable for our compliance with this policy and with privacy law. You can reach the Privacy Officer at privacy@sellvara.com, or by mail at Privacy Officer, Sellvara Inc., 1074 Balment Ave, Mississauga, Ontario L5E 1N8.

2. Information we collect

Account information. Your name, email address, password (stored only in hashed form), phone number, preferred contact method, province of residence, role and, if you act for an organization, its name and your title.

Seller and listing information. Details about the business you list, including its industry, region, years operating, revenue, seller's discretionary earnings or EBITDA, number of employees, reason for selling and asking price or valuation range, your confirmation of ownership or authority, photos, and documents you upload to the data room such as financial statements, leases and contracts. Business information is often not personal information, but for owner-operated businesses it can be, and documents may contain personal information about employees, customers, landlords or other people.

Buyer information. Your buyer profile, including acquisition criteria, industries, provinces, budget, timeline and experience, along with your bookmarks, saved searches, alert settings and private notes.

Proof of funds. The bank or brokerage statement, lender pre-approval letter or fund or bank letter you upload. We delete the document once we have reviewed it and keep only the result, the verified amount and the date.

Advisor information. Your professional designation, firm, practice details, application, profile, service quotes and engagements, your GST/HST registration number if you give it to us, the payment details you give us so we can pay you Referral Fees (such as the email address for an Interac e-Transfer, or your bank account details for a direct deposit), and records of the Referral Fees we calculate and pay you.

Referral information. When an advisor refers a client, the client's name, email address and any notes the advisor provides. Advisors must have their client's permission before sharing this information with us.

Agreements and activity records. Records of your acceptance of our Terms, the Buyer NDA, the Seller Engagement Agreement and other agreements, including the version, date, time and IP address; the introduction log showing which buyers were introduced to which listings; access requests, approvals and revocations; deal stages; and data room activity, including which documents were viewed or downloaded.

Messages. The content of messages sent through the Platform.

Payment information. When you make a purchase, Stripe collects your card details. We receive limited information such as payment status, amount, the last four digits of the card and billing details. We never receive or store full card numbers.

Valuation information. The financial figures and other inputs you enter into the valuation calculator or a written estimate report, and the results.

Technical information. Your IP address, browser and device type, and server logs of requests to the Platform, which we use to keep the Platform secure and running.

Visit counts. When you view a page, we record the page (without any record numbers in its address), the name of the website that referred you, your device type and whether you were signed in, together with a code that changes every day and cannot identify you. We use these records only to count visits and understand how the Platform is used. We don't count visits from browsers that send a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal.

Communications with us. Information you provide when you contact us, request a consultation or give feedback.

3. How we use your information

We use personal information to:

create and manage your account and verify your eligibility, residency and authority;
review, prepare and publish listings, teasers and test-the-market profiles;
verify buyer proof of funds;
run the staged access process, including NDAs, seller approvals, deal stages, data rooms, messaging and scheduling;
deliver saved searches, alerts, notifications and other features you choose to use;
provide valuation estimates and reports, and arrange advisor services and professional valuations;
process payments, pay advisors their Referral Fees and send them statements;
calculate, invoice and collect fees, and enforce our Terms, the Buyer NDA, the Seller Engagement Agreement and the Advisor Agreement, including non-circumvention and tail-period obligations;
detect, investigate and prevent fraud, misuse and security incidents;
respond to your questions and provide support;
meet our legal, tax and accounting obligations; and
with your consent, send you Sellvara news and updates, which you can unsubscribe from at any time.

We do not sell or rent personal information, we do not use it for third-party advertising, and we do not use it to train artificial intelligence models.

We collect, use and disclose personal information with your consent, except where the law allows otherwise. By creating an account and using the Platform, you consent to the uses described in this policy. We ask for your express consent for more sensitive information, such as proof of funds and financial information, when you provide it.

You may withdraw your consent at any time, subject to legal and contractual restrictions. If you do, we may not be able to provide some services. For example, we cannot verify a buyer without proof of funds. We will still keep the records described in section 9.

With other users, as the process requires.

Public teasers show a category, region, revenue range, asking price, short description and any photos the seller approves for public display. They are designed not to identify the business or the seller.
When you request access to a listing, the seller and any advisor acting for the seller see your buyer profile and verification status.
Once a seller approves a buyer, the buyer sees the business identity, detailed financials and data room documents available at the current deal stage, and contact details can be exchanged.
Messages are visible to the people in the conversation.
Advisor profiles are visible to users of the Platform.

With advisors connected to a seller. If a seller delegates a listing to an advisor, or an advisor referred the seller, that advisor can see the listing, buyer requests and deal progress, as the seller allows.

With advisors and valuators you engage. When you request advisor services or a professional valuation, we share the information needed for that engagement with the advisor or valuator.

With service providers. We share personal information with service providers who process it for us under contract and only for the services they provide:

Supabase, which hosts our database, account sign-in and stored files on Amazon Web Services servers in Montreal, Canada;
Netlify, which hosts our website and delivers its pages through servers in the United States and other countries;
Amazon Web Services (Amazon Simple Email Service), which sends our automatic emails from its Canada (Montreal) region;
Stripe, which processes card and other online payments and may store payment data in the United States;
SignWell, which handles electronic signing of the Seller Engagement Agreement and may store data in the United States;
Cloudflare, which runs the automated check that protects sign-up and sign-in from bots, and may process your IP address and browser information in the United States and other countries for that check;
Google Workspace, which provides our team's email and may store data outside Canada; and
Anthropic, which writes the explanation in valuation reports and processes data in the United States (see section 6).

We pay advisors' Referral Fees from Sellvara's own business bank account, by Interac e-Transfer, direct deposit or cheque. Our bank receives the payment details needed to send each payment.

For legal reasons and protection. Where required or permitted by law, including to comply with a court order, subpoena or other lawful request, to enforce our agreements and collect fees, to protect the rights, property or safety of Sellvara, our users or others, and to investigate fraud.

With our professional advisers. Our lawyers, accountants and auditors, who are bound by confidentiality.

In a business transaction. If Sellvara is involved in a merger, financing, sale of assets or similar transaction, personal information may be disclosed to the other parties as permitted by PIPEDA, under agreements that require them to protect it.

6. Valuation reports and artificial intelligence

The free valuation calculator runs entirely on our own systems.

For written estimate reports, our systems perform the calculations, and the financial inputs and related source information are sent to Anthropic in the United States to write the explanation. We do not send seller contact details or uploaded documents. Anthropic does not use this data to train its AI models and may keep requests for [retention period to be confirmed] for safety and abuse monitoring before deleting them.

Reports are visible only to the seller who prepared them, unless the seller shares them with buyers they have approved.

7. Information stored outside Canada

Our core database and uploaded files are stored in Canada. Some of the service providers listed in section 5 store or process information in the United States or elsewhere. Information stored outside Canada is subject to the laws of those countries and may be accessible to their courts, law enforcement and national security authorities. We use contractual and other measures to protect it.

8. Cookies and browser storage

We keep you signed in by storing a sign-in token in your browser's local storage. We also use your browser's storage for a few conveniences, such as remembering which workspace you last used, signing you out after a period of inactivity and keeping the figures you enter in the valuation calculator while you work. The automated check that protects sign-up and sign-in (see section 5) may set its own cookie for that check. We do not use analytics, advertising or tracking cookies, or any third-party tracking tools. We count visits ourselves without cookies, as described in section 2. If you block browser storage, you will not be able to sign in.

9. How long we keep information

Account, profile and listing information is kept while your account is open.
When you close your account, we delete its data within 30 days, and it is removed from our encrypted backups within a further 90 days, except as listed below.
Proof of funds documents are deleted once reviewed. The result, verified amount and date are kept with your account records.
Signed Buyer NDAs, Seller Engagement Agreements, Advisor Agreements, acceptance records, introduction logs, invoices and fee and payment records are kept for six years after the relevant agreement, transaction or tax year ends, to enforce our agreements, including tail-period obligations, and to meet Canada Revenue Agency record-keeping requirements.
Information relevant to a legal claim or dispute is kept until it is resolved.
Server logs are kept by our hosting providers for security purposes and deleted automatically within 30 days.
Visit records are deleted after 13 months.

10. How we protect information

We use safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information. Passwords are hashed. Access to confidential records is limited to the people who need it. Uploaded files are stored privately, and private downloads require current access permission. Backups are encrypted before they are stored, and only Sellvara holds the key. Proof of funds documents are deleted after review, and we limit what we share with service providers. No system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee the security of information.

If a breach of security safeguards creates a real risk of significant harm, we will notify the affected individuals and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada as the law requires. We keep a record of every breach.

11. Your rights

You may ask to access the personal information we hold about you, correct it, withdraw your consent, have it deleted subject to section 9, or learn how it has been used and to whom it has been disclosed. Send your request to privacy@sellvara.com. We may need to verify your identity. We will respond within 30 days and will not charge you.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at priv.gc.ca or 1-800-282-1376.

12. Information sellers upload about others

Sellers must have the right to share the documents they upload and should remove personal information that is not reasonably necessary for a buyer's evaluation. Buyers who receive personal information through the Platform must, under the Buyer NDA, use it only for the proposed transaction, protect it with appropriate safeguards and return or destroy it if the transaction does not proceed, as PIPEDA requires for business transactions.

13. Age

The Platform is not intended for anyone under the age of majority in their province or territory, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information.

14. Marketing emails

We send news and updates only if you opt in, as required by Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation. Every marketing email includes an unsubscribe link. We will still send messages about your account, transactions and the Platform.

15. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. For material changes, we will notify you by email and on the Platform before they take effect.

16. Contact

Privacy Officer, Sellvara Inc., 1074 Balment Ave, Mississauga, Ontario L5E 1N8. Email privacy@sellvara.com.