Terms of Membership

These Terms govern your membership in The Academy from Rubedo Ventures, LLC. The short version: it’s a monthly membership, it renews until you cancel, you can cancel any time, and payments aren’t refunded. Please read section 5 (no refunds) and section 16 (arbitration and class-action waiver) carefully, because they affect your legal rights.

Rubedo Ventures, LLC, a North Carolina limited liability company
100 Hay Street, Suite 704, PMB 1034, Fayetteville, NC 28301, United States
Contact: [email protected]
Effective: upon publication

1. Agreement

By joining The Academy or using any of its content (“the membership”) from Rubedo Ventures, LLC (“Rubedo Ventures,” “we,” “us”), you (“you,” “the member”) agree to these Terms. They are linked from every page of this site. If you don’t agree, don’t join.

These Terms apply alongside our Privacy Policy.

1.1 Who sells to you. Rubedo Ventures provides The Academy. Payment is taken by Whop (whop.com), which acts as merchant of record for each payment and for any sales tax or VAT on it: Whop calculates the tax, collects it and pays it to the tax authorities. When you check out, you also accept Whop’s buyer terms, which govern the payment itself.

Everything else is ours: the lessons, the community, your access, support, and the decisions in these Terms.

1.2 How the two sets of terms fit together. Whop’s buyer terms govern the transaction. These Terms govern the membership: what’s included, how billing and cancelling work, how you may use the content, the education-not-advice position, and the limits of our liability. Where the two conflict on your rights as a buyer, the terms more favorable to you apply, and nothing here reduces a right those buyer terms or your local consumer law give you.

2. What the membership includes

• The course. Six video modules, from personal finance to institutional price action, with quizzes at the end of lessons. The modules release over time: when enrollment opens, two of the six are complete and the rest are still in production. Your membership includes each module as it’s released. We share target dates, but we don’t promise them, and a later release date is not grounds for a refund.
• The community. Access to our member spaces on Whop and Discord, including trade reviews, accountability and the prayer wall.
• What we build next. Members hear first about new products. Any paid add-on, such as a future signals service, is sold separately and is not part of the membership unless we say so.

Everything is delivered online through Whop and Discord. Nothing is shipped. You need your own internet connection and a device that can play video.

We may improve, update, reorder or retire individual lessons and community spaces over time to keep the material accurate and useful. We won’t remove a module from the membership while you’re paying for it without replacing it with something of equal or greater value.

3. Price, billing and automatic renewal

3.1 Price. The Academy costs $249.99 per month, or $199.99 per month at the rate for those who served (section 4). Prices are in US dollars. Where sales tax, VAT or GST applies to your location, Whop adds it at checkout, so the total you approve is the total you pay.

3.2 Automatic renewal. Your membership renews automatically every month and your payment method is charged the monthly price on the same day each month, until you cancel. You authorize Whop to make those recurring charges when you join.

3.3 Failed payments. If a renewal payment fails, Whop may retry it. If it can’t be collected, your access pauses or ends until payment succeeds.

3.4 Price changes. If we change the price, we’ll email you at least 30 days before the change applies to you. A new price takes effect at your next renewal after that notice, and you can cancel before then if you don’t want to continue.

You’re responsible for any currency-conversion, foreign-transaction or bank charges your own card issuer adds.

4. The rate for those who served

The $199.99 monthly rate is for veterans and current members of the US Armed Forces, including the National Guard and Reserves. For now it works on the honor system: by choosing it, you confirm that you are eligible.

We may ask for reasonable proof of service at any time. If you can’t provide it, or you’re not eligible, we’ll move your membership to the standard price from your next renewal, after giving you notice and the chance to cancel first. We won’t charge the difference for months already paid.

5. Cancelling, and no refunds

5.1 Cancel any time. You can cancel whenever you like, from your memberships in your Whop account, or by emailing [email protected] and asking us to cancel for you. There is no cancellation fee and no minimum term.

5.2 What happens when you cancel. Cancelling stops all future charges. You keep your access until the end of the month you’ve already paid for, then it ends. You can rejoin later at the price in effect at that time.

5.3 No refunds. The full membership, including every released lesson and the community, is available the moment each payment goes through. For that reason, payments are not refunded, including for a partial month, for a month you didn’t use, or after you cancel, except as set out in sections 5.4 and 5.5.

5.4 Billing mistakes, we fix. If you were charged twice, charged after you cancelled, or charged the wrong amount, email us and we’ll refund the mistaken charge. We’d rather fix a problem than keep money we shouldn’t have.

5.5 Your statutory rights. Nothing in these Terms removes or limits a right you have under the law where you live that can’t be removed by agreement. Consumers in the European Union, the EEA and the United Kingdom normally have 14 days to withdraw from an online contract. That right doesn’t apply to digital content supplied immediately at the consumer’s express request, with the acknowledgment that the right is lost once supply begins. By joining, you ask for immediate access and give that acknowledgment. Where your local law gives you a stronger right than anything described here, that stronger right applies.

6. Payment disputes

If you have any problem with a charge, please email [email protected] first. We answer every message, and contacting us is almost always faster than a dispute with your bank. If a dispute is filed, we may provide the records we actually hold: the transaction record, your acceptance of these Terms, and your membership and access history. We may end the membership of an account that files a dispute we determine to be unfounded.

7. Referral rewards

Members can earn a reward when someone they refer joins and pays. You can take the reward as credit toward your own membership, or as a cash payout. The reward amount and how it’s tracked are shown in your Whop account when the program opens, and cash payouts are made through Whop, which may ask for the tax information the law requires.

• Referring yourself, a second account of your own, or a fake account doesn’t count.
• You may not spam, mislead people, make income or profit claims, or pay for ads using our name to get referrals.
• If a referred member’s payment is reversed or disputed, the reward for that payment is reversed too.
• We may change or end the program for future referrals. Rewards you’ve already earned are honored.

8. Community rules

The community only works if people can be honest about their trades and their struggles. In every member space, you agree to:

• treat other members with respect: no harassment, hate, threats, or mocking someone for a loss;
• keep what members share in the community, including prayer requests, inside the community;
• not sell, advertise or recruit for your own products, signals, groups or referral links;
• not promote pump-and-dump schemes, or ask members to buy anything for your benefit;
• not present yourself as giving professional financial advice to other members; and
• not post anything unlawful, or anything you don’t have the right to share.

We may remove posts, and suspend or end the membership of anyone who breaks these rules. If we end a membership for a serious or repeated breach, it isn’t refunded. What other members post is their own view, not ours.

9. Your license and our content

Your membership gives you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to watch and use the content for your own learning while your membership is active. Your account is for you alone.

You may not:

• share your login or let anyone else use your membership;
• download, screen-record, copy, resell, rent, sublicense, distribute or publicly post the lessons, quizzes or community material, or any substantial part of them;
• upload them to file-sharing, torrent, cloud-sharing or “free course” sites;
• use the content to create a competing or derivative product, or to train a machine learning model; or
• remove or obscure any copyright or attribution notice.

All content, including the lessons, the artwork, and the Rubedo Ventures and The Academy names and marks, remains our intellectual property and is protected by copyright. Nothing in these Terms transfers ownership to you. Breaking this section ends your license immediately and may result in legal action.

10. Education, not advice

Everything in The Academy is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not financial, investment, trading, tax, accounting or legal advice, and it doesn’t create an advisory or fiduciary relationship between us.

• Rubedo Ventures is not a licensed financial adviser, broker-dealer or registered investment adviser, and is not registered with or supervised by any financial regulator.
• Nothing in our lessons, community, emails or social media is a recommendation, solicitation or offer to buy, sell or hold any security, asset or financial instrument.
• The content is general and doesn’t account for your personal circumstances, objectives or financial position.
• Before acting on anything you learn, do your own research and consult a professional licensed where you live.

11. No guarantee of results

Trading and investing carry substantial risk, including losing all the money you commit. We make no promise, guarantee or projection of any income, profit, return or other outcome. Past performance doesn’t indicate future results. Trades we show, wins and losses alike, are for teaching, and chart examples may be illustrative. Any result you get depends on your own decisions, effort, discipline, skill, capital and circumstances, all outside our knowledge and control. You alone are responsible for your financial decisions and their consequences.

12. Third-party services

The Academy runs on established third parties: Whop for payments, accounts and the course, and Discord for part of the community. Each is named, with what it receives and why, in our Privacy Policy. Your use of those services is subject to their own terms. We aren’t responsible for their outages, errors or decisions, though we’ll work with you in good faith to sort out any problem they cause.

13. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Rubedo Ventures, LLC and its members, managers and agents won’t be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for any lost profits, lost data, or trading or investment losses, arising out of or relating to the membership or these Terms, whether based in contract, tort or any other theory, and whether or not we were told such damages were possible.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total liability arising out of or relating to the membership or these Terms won’t exceed the amount you actually paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, death or personal injury caused by negligence, or any other liability that can’t lawfully be excluded or limited. Some jurisdictions don’t allow certain exclusions, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

14. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Rubedo Ventures, LLC and its members, managers and agents from any claim, loss, liability or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your breach of these Terms, your misuse of the content, your conduct in the community, or your infringement of anyone else’s rights.

15. Eligibility

You must be at least 18, or the age of majority where you live if that’s higher, to join. The Academy isn’t directed to children. By joining, you confirm you meet this requirement and can legally enter into this agreement.

16. Disputes and arbitration

16.1 Talk to us first. Before starting any formal proceeding, you agree to email [email protected] describing the problem, and to give us 30 days to resolve it informally. Most issues are resolved this way.

16.2 Binding arbitration. If we can’t resolve a dispute informally, you and Rubedo Ventures agree that any dispute, claim or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or the membership will be resolved by final and binding arbitration, rather than in court, administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules. The arbitration will take place in Cumberland County, North Carolina, or by phone, videoconference or documents only, at your choice. The arbitrator’s award may be entered as a judgment in any court with jurisdiction.

16.3 Class-action waiver. You and Rubedo Ventures agree that each may bring claims against the other only in an individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective, consolidated or representative proceeding. The arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person’s claims or preside over any form of representative proceeding. If this paragraph is found unenforceable for a particular claim, that claim proceeds in court and the rest of section 16 still applies to all other claims.

16.4 Small claims. Either of us may bring an individual claim in small claims court instead of arbitration, for any claim within that court’s limits that stays in that court. Choosing small claims court waives arbitration for that claim only.

16.5 Your right to opt out. You may opt out of this arbitration agreement and the class-action waiver by emailing [email protected] with the subject line “Arbitration Opt-Out” and your name and the email on your Whop account within 30 days of first joining. Opting out won’t affect your membership or any other part of these Terms.

16.6 Consumers outside the United States. If you’re a consumer living in the European Union, the United Kingdom, or anywhere else whose law gives you a non-waivable right to bring proceedings in your local courts or before a consumer body, section 16 doesn’t take that right away.

16.7 Who pays for the arbitration. The AAA’s Consumer Arbitration Rules decide how arbitration fees are split, and under those rules we pay most of the cost of an arbitration you bring. Each of us pays our own legal fees unless the arbitrator awards otherwise under those rules or the law.

16.8 Coordinated filings. If 25 or more similar claims are filed against us by, or with the coordination of, the same lawyers or firms, those claims will be administered together under the AAA’s Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules, in staged batches. Any limitation period for a claim waiting for its batch is paused while it waits. Nothing in this paragraph limits what any individual may recover.

17. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of North Carolina, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Subject to section 16, the state and federal courts in Cumberland County, North Carolina have exclusive jurisdiction.

If you’re a consumer living outside the United States, this choice of law doesn’t take away the protection of any mandatory consumer-protection law of your country.

18. Changes and general terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. For a material change, we’ll email members and update the effective date above. A change applies from your next renewal after that notice, never to months you’ve already paid for. If you don’t agree to a change, you can cancel before it applies to you.

If any provision is held unenforceable, it will be limited or removed to the minimum extent necessary, and the rest stays in force. Not enforcing a provision isn’t a waiver of it. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, are the entire agreement between us about the membership. You may not transfer these Terms; we may transfer them as part of a merger, acquisition or sale of assets.

What you’re agreeing to, in plain words