Terms of service

1. Who we are

These terms govern services provided by Holdout Labs, a Texas limited liability company in formation, operated by its founder, Raghuram Vadapally (“Holdout Labs”, “we”, “us”), 5900 Balcones Dr, Suite 100, Austin, TX 78731, United States, to you (“client”, “you”). Contact: [email protected].

When the company’s formation is complete, it will take over these terms and every open engagement on the same terms; we will tell you by email. Nothing you need to do changes.

Our services are for business and professional use. If you order for an organisation, you confirm that you are authorised to bind it, and “you” means that organisation.

2. The service: statistical analysis only

We perform a statistical analysis of a trading strategy, track record or return series that you supply, and deliver a written report. The report measures how fragile the historical evidence is (for example overfitting, multiple testing, holdout behaviour, stability and cost sensitivity). The scope of each engagement is the tier or offer described on the pricing page at the time of your order, or the scope set out in a signed engagement letter.

3. Not advice, and no recommendation

Our reports, grades, fix lists and conversations are statistical analysis of past data. They are not investment, financial, trading, legal, tax, accounting or compliance advice. We do not recommend that you or anyone else buy, sell or hold any security, derivative, commodity, currency or digital asset; allocate to or withdraw from any strategy, fund or manager; or hire, keep or dismiss any person. A report does not certify that anything complies with any law or rule, including the SEC Marketing Rule. We do not manage money and we do not predict future performance.

You agree not to present a report as advice, as a recommendation, or as a guarantee or certification of future performance. The disclaimer forms part of these terms.

4. How an engagement is formed

An engagement starts when we confirm scope and fee to you in writing (an order confirmation by email) and you accept it by paying or by signing our engagement letter. Institutional engagements normally use a signed engagement letter. We may decline any engagement, for example where it would fall outside our statistical-analysis-only scope.

5. Fees and payment

Fees are those stated in your signed engagement letter or order confirmation, in US dollars, and exclude any applicable taxes. Unless the engagement letter says otherwise, fees are payable in advance, by card payment link or by invoice, before we begin the analysis. Monthly services (such as the Sealed Forward Trial or monitoring) are billed monthly in advance until cancelled.

6. Cancellation and refunds

• Before work begins: if you cancel before we have received your data, we refund the fee in full.
• Once analysis begins (when we receive your data): fees are not refundable, except where we fail to deliver the report within the agreed scope, in which case we refund the fees paid for the part we did not deliver.
• Errors: if you tell us within 14 days of delivery about a factual or computational error on our part, we correct the report at no charge. We do not refund because a grade is lower than hoped; the grade is the product.
• Monthly services: you may cancel at any time; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing month, with no refund for part of a month. A Sealed Forward Trial setup fee is not refundable once the protocol has been sealed, because sealing is work already done.

7. Your data and materials

You keep all rights in the strategy, code, returns, positions and other materials you send. You give us a limited, non-exclusive licence to use them only to perform the engagement. You confirm that you have the right to send them to us and that our use of them to perform the engagement does not breach any law, contract, confidentiality duty or data-vendor licence. Please send only what the engagement needs, in the data contract format, following how to send data. Do not send passwords, account logins, or personal information about individuals beyond business contact details.

8. Confidentiality

We treat your materials and your report as confidential, as described on our confidentiality & data handling page, which forms part of these terms. We use them only to perform your engagement, do not trade on them, and disclose them only to the service providers named on that page (which process them only to provide their service to us) or where the law requires. Where you and we have signed a non-disclosure agreement, the NDA controls if it conflicts with these terms or that page.

9. AI-assisted analysis

Every audit is AI-assisted. We use AI tooling (currently Anthropic’s Claude, with model training on our data turned off) to help analyse data and prepare reports, and our prices assume it. Use of this tooling is a condition of the service: by engaging us, you agree to it. The founder reviews every delivered report and is responsible for its content. We tell you this before any data is sent, so you can decide whether to proceed.

10. Your report

Once you have paid, you may use your report for your own purposes and share it with others. If you share it, share it in full or, if you share part, do not present it in a misleading way and include the report’s disclaimer. Do not describe a report as a certification, guarantee or prediction of future performance. We keep all rights in our methods, rubrics, software, templates and know-how, including where they appear in your report.

11. Publication only with your written opt-in

Client engagements are confidential by default. We publish nothing about your engagement, including your grade, your numbers, your name or the fact that you are a client, unless you opt in in writing, and then only in the form you approve. You may withdraw an opt-in at any time before publication.

12. Our published research and website

Our own published research (for example our audit batches, case studies and method pages) is ours. Where a page or file states that it is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0), you may reuse it on those terms, with attribution to Holdout Labs. Our open-source toolkit is licensed under its own licence. Everything else on this website is © Holdout Labs, all rights reserved.

13. Our commitment, and its limits

We perform each engagement with reasonable skill and care, using the published methods described on our method page. Our work relies on the data and descriptions you supply; we do not verify your trading records unless the engagement says so. Beyond the commitment in this section, reports and any software are provided “as is”, without other warranties, express or implied, to the extent the law allows.

14. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

• our total liability for all claims arising from or relating to an engagement is limited to the fees you paid us for that engagement (for a monthly service, the fees paid for it in the 12 months before the claim arose); and
• neither of us is liable to the other for indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages, and we are not liable for trading or investment losses, lost profits, lost opportunities or decisions you or others make using a report.

Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, such as liability for fraud.

15. Your responsibility for your data and your use of reports

You will be responsible for, and will cover our reasonable costs of, third-party claims that arise from data you sent us without the right to do so, or from your presenting a report in breach of sections 3 or 10.

16. Ending an engagement

Either of us may end an engagement by written notice (email is fine). Section 6 then decides any refund. Sections 3, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15 and 17 continue after an engagement ends.

17. Governing law and courts

These terms, and any dispute arising from them or from an engagement, are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, United States, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. The state and federal courts located in Travis County, Texas have exclusive jurisdiction, and each of us consents to their jurisdiction and venue. There is no arbitration requirement.

JURY TRIAL WAIVER. TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, YOU AND WE EACH KNOWINGLY AND VOLUNTARILY WAIVE ANY RIGHT TO A TRIAL BY JURY IN ANY DISPUTE ARISING FROM THESE TERMS OR AN ENGAGEMENT.

18. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms and will show the new effective date on this page. The version in force when you accept an order or sign an engagement letter applies to that engagement. For monthly services, changes apply from the next billing month after we give you at least 30 days’ notice by email.

19. Entire agreement and order of precedence

Your engagement consists of your signed engagement letter or order confirmation, these terms, and the pages they refer to (the disclaimer, confidentiality & data handling and privacy notice), together with any signed NDA. Together they are the entire agreement on their subject, and replace earlier discussions. If they conflict: a signed NDA controls on confidentiality; otherwise a signed engagement letter or order confirmation controls over these terms, and these terms control over other website pages.

If any part of these terms is unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. A failure to enforce a term is not a waiver. You may not assign an engagement without our written consent; we may assign it to the company on completion of its formation, or to a successor to our business. Neither of us is responsible for delay caused by events beyond reasonable control. Notices may be given by email: to [email protected], and to the email address you gave us.

20. Contact

Questions about these terms: [email protected] or [email protected]. Post: Holdout Labs, 5900 Balcones Dr, Suite 100, Austin, TX 78731, United States.