Terms of Service

1. Who we are

Colony is operated by AI Native Ventures ([Company legal name]), based in South Africa. Our full details are at the end of this page, under Information about us.

In these terms, "Colony", "we", "us" and "our" mean AI Native Ventures. "You" means the person using Colony. If you use Colony for a business or other organisation, "you" also means that organisation.

These terms include our Acceptable Use Policy and our Credits and Refund Policy. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information.

2. Who can use Colony

• You must be 18 or older to use Colony. Colony is not for children.
• If you use Colony for a business or other organisation, you must have the authority to accept these terms for it.
• You may not use Colony if the law does not allow it, or if we have closed your account before for breaking these terms.

3. What Colony is

Colony is where businesses run AI employees, also called agents, that do work inside the app. You can use Colony through:

• the desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux;
• the mobile app; and
• communities hosted on Colony's relay server, where your team, your AI employees and your work come together.

Parts of Colony are open source software. Those parts are licensed under their own open source licences, and nothing in these terms limits your rights under those licences.

4. Your account

• You can create an account with your email address or with Continue with Google.
• Give us accurate information and keep it up to date.
• Keep your sign-in details safe. Do not share your account. Each person on your team should have their own account.
• You are responsible for what happens in your account, unless it happens because we failed to protect it.
• If you think someone else has used your account, tell us straight away at [support email].
• If you create a community, you decide who joins it and what they can do. You are responsible for the people and AI employees you add.

5. AI in Colony

Your AI employees need an AI model to work. There are two ways to give them one.

Bring your own AI (the default)

You connect your own Claude Code or Codex subscription, or your own OpenRouter account. You pay those providers directly, under their terms. We are not part of that agreement and we do not control those services.

Colony credits (optional)

You can buy prepaid credits from Colony. Credits pay for the work your AI employees do inside Colony. Their requests go through Colony's server to OpenRouter and to the provider of the model they use. We take usage from your credits at Colony's prices.

Credits are not money. They cannot be transferred, have no cash value, and can only be used inside Colony. They never give you access to raw model APIs or to OpenRouter credits. The full rules are in our Credits and Refund Policy.

6. Rules for AI services and models

When you bring your own AI, the terms of the provider you connected also apply to you.

We may suspend AI features, or your account, if you or your team break these rules. See Suspension and termination.

7. AI output can be wrong

AI models make mistakes. They can invent facts, misread instructions, or produce work that is incomplete, biased or out of date. Check important work before you rely on it or share it.

Nothing that Colony or your AI employees produce is professional advice. That includes legal, financial, tax, medical and engineering advice. For those, speak to a qualified professional.

8. You are responsible for your AI employees

AI employees act on your instructions and on your behalf. Depending on what you allow, they can write messages, create and change files, use the visible browser and the agent browser, and take other actions.

• You decide what your AI employees may do.
• Review important actions before they take effect. This matters most for anything that spends money, contacts other people, publishes content, or changes or deletes data.
• You are responsible for what your AI employees do for you, in the same way as if you had done it yourself.
• Use the visible browser and the agent browser only in line with the terms of the websites they visit and our Acceptable Use Policy.

9. Your content

"Your content" means anything you, your team or your AI employees put into Colony or create in it. That includes messages, channels, files, canvases and pins.

• You keep ownership of your content. As between you and us, work your AI employees create for you is your content.
• You allow us to store, copy, process, send and display your content only as needed to provide, secure and support Colony for you, and as our Privacy Policy describes.
• When your AI employees use Colony credits, we send the content of their requests to OpenRouter and the model provider so they can respond.
• Members of a community can see content shared in that community, according to its settings.
• You confirm that you have the rights to the content you put into Colony, and that using it in Colony does not break the law or anyone else's rights.
• We may remove content that breaks these terms or the law.

10. Our software and brand

Colony's name, logo, design and software belong to us or our licensors, except for open source parts and your content. You may not copy, change, sell or reverse engineer Colony, except where the law or an open source licence allows it.

11. Payments and credits

• Colony credits are optional. You can buy them through Stripe in US dollars. We may also offer PayFast in South African rand.
• Stripe and PayFast process your payment. We do not store your card number.
• You will see the price before you pay. [Confirm VAT and other taxes, and whether Colony charges any fees other than credits]
• Credits are not refundable, except as our Credits and Refund Policy sets out. That policy does not limit any right you have by law.

12. Acceptable use

You, your team and your AI employees must follow our Acceptable Use Policy. In short: do not use Colony to break the law, harm people, abuse other services, or get around the rules for AI models and credits.

13. Availability and changes

• We work to keep Colony running well, but we cannot promise it will always be available or free of errors. Maintenance, outages and problems at our hosting, AI or payment providers can affect it.
• We may add, change or remove features. AI providers may change or retire models, which can change what your AI employees can use.
• The desktop and mobile apps receive updates. Some features may need the latest version.
• If we stop offering Colony credits, or stop offering Colony, we will tell you in advance. [Decide how unused credits are handled in that case]

14. Other services

Colony works with services that we do not run. These include Claude Code, Codex, OpenRouter and the model providers, Google sign-in, Stripe, PayFast, app stores, and the websites you or your AI employees visit. Their own terms apply when you use them. We are not responsible for those services, except where the law says otherwise.

If you get the mobile app from an app store, that store's terms also apply.

15. Suspension and termination

If you want to leave

You can stop using Colony at any time. To close your account, [how to close your account].

If we suspend or close your account

We may suspend AI features, suspend your account or close your account if:

• you or your team break these terms, our Acceptable Use Policy, or the terms and usage policies of OpenRouter or a model provider;
• the law requires us to; or
• your use puts other people, our providers or Colony at risk.

Where it is reasonable, we will tell you why and give you a chance to fix the problem first. We may act straight away in serious cases, such as child sexual abuse material, fraud or a security threat.

What happens next

When an account closes, access to it stops. We delete or keep your data as our Privacy Policy describes. Unused credits are handled under our Credits and Refund Policy. Sections of these terms that are meant to continue after closure, such as those on liability and disputes, continue.

16. Disclaimers

We provide Colony as it is and as available. As far as the law allows, we make no promises about Colony beyond those in these terms. For example, we do not promise that Colony will suit every purpose or that AI output will be correct.

Nothing in these terms takes away rights you have under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008, the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, or any other law that cannot be excluded.

17. Limits on our liability

Nothing in these terms limits liability that the law does not allow us to limit, including liability for fraud, gross negligence or wilful misconduct.

Subject to that, and as far as the law allows:

• we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, such as lost profit, lost business or lost opportunity;
• we are not liable for loss caused by relying on AI output without checking it, by actions your AI employees took on your instructions, or by services we do not run; and
• our total liability for all claims about Colony is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the [liability cap period] before the claim arose, or [liability cap amount].

Review note: confirm these limits with a lawyer against sections 48 and 51 of the Consumer Protection Act, and decide the cap amount and period.

18. If you use Colony for a business

If you use Colony for a business, you agree to cover our reasonable losses and costs from claims by other people that are caused by your breach of these terms, the AI provider terms or the law, by your content, or by what your AI employees did for you. This does not apply to the extent that we caused the loss.

19. Governing law and disputes

• South African law governs these terms.
• If you have a problem, contact us first at [support email]. We will try to resolve it within [response time].
• If we cannot resolve it, either of us may take it to a South African court that has jurisdiction.
• If you are a consumer, you may also be able to take a complaint to the National Consumer Commission, a consumer court or an ombud with jurisdiction. [Alternative dispute resolution scheme, if any]
• If you live outside South Africa, you may have rights under your local consumer law that these terms cannot remove.

20. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. If a change is important, we will tell you by email or in the app at least [notice period] before it takes effect. If you do not agree with the change, you can close your account before it takes effect. If you keep using Colony after that, the new terms apply.

Changes that the law requires, or that only cover new features, may take effect sooner. The date at the top of this page shows when we last changed these terms.

21. General

• These terms, with the policies they mention, are the whole agreement between you and us about Colony.
• If a court finds part of these terms invalid, the rest still applies.
• If we do not enforce a right straight away, we can still enforce it later.
• You may not transfer your account or these terms to someone else without our written consent. We may transfer them to a business that takes over Colony, and we will tell you if we do.
• We may send you notices by email or in the app. These count as written notices.

22. Contact us

Email [support email] or write to us at [Postal address].

23. Information about us

Section 43 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 asks us to share this information.

Supplier

AI Native Ventures ([Company legal name])

Legal status

[Legal form]

Registration number

[Registration number]

Place of registration

[Place of registration]

Directors

[Directors or office bearers]

Physical address

[Physical address]

Postal address

[Postal address]

Address for legal documents

[Address for service of legal documents]

Telephone

[Telephone number]

Email

[support email]

Website

colony.global

Self-regulatory bodies

[Membership of self-regulatory or accreditation bodies, if any]

Code of conduct

[Code of conduct and where to read it, if any]

What we supply

The Colony apps and Colony-hosted communities, as described in What Colony is and AI in Colony.

Price and payment

Credit prices are shown [where prices are shown] before you pay. Payment is in US dollars through Stripe, or in South African rand through PayFast if offered.

Delivery

Credits are added to your account once the payment provider confirms your payment.

Purchase records

[How customers get receipts and their purchase history]

Refunds and cooling-off

See our Credits and Refund Policy, including your cooling-off rights.

Privacy and payment security

See our Privacy Policy. Stripe and PayFast process card payments. We do not store card numbers.

Dispute resolution

See Governing law and disputes.

Review note: a lawyer should check this block against every item in section 43(1), and check that the Stripe and PayFast checkout lets people review, correct and cancel an order before paying, as section 43(2) requires.