Community guidelines

Table of content

Commuity guideline

Privacy policy

Introduction 1.
How we use your data 2.
How we share information 3.
Your choices and obligations 4.
Other important information 5.

Support & terms of services

Community guideline

“We want Venture Backed to reflect the best version of professional life within the Venture Capital ecosystem. This is a community where we treat each other with respect and help each other succeed.”

1.

Venture Backed Professional Community Policies

Thank you for using Venture Backed, where our mission is to connect the Venture Capital ecosystem to allow the ecosystem to be more productive, and by extension, more successful. We at Venture Backed Capital believe that by bringing together knowledgeable, experienced experts and operators from key facets of the Venture Capital Ecosystem to share their experiences, advice, and knowledge; we will be able to foster a supportive environment where more early-stage companies perform well, raise more capital and create stronger returns for themselves and their stakeholders long term.

The content that you contribute should add to the Venture Backed platform in a constructive manner. Additional information on what that means, is laid out below. You should also review our Publishing Platform Guidelines. Together we can make our community a place where everyone is able to learn, grow, and communicate, which, in turn, helps create economic opportunity for everyone.

Tell us if you see abusive content

If you see something you believe may violate our policies, whether in profiles, posts, messages, comments, or anywhere else, please report it to us. Combined with our automated defenses, these reports help us identify and prevent abuse. Please use the reporting tools responsibly and only for their intended purposes.

Violating our community policies can result in action against your account or content

These policies apply to all members. Depending on the severity of violation, we may limit the visibility of certain content, label it, or remove it entirely. Repeated or egregious offenses will result in account restriction. If you believe action taken on your content or your account was in error, you can submit an appeal.

Professional Community Policy Enforcement

We remove content that violates our Professional Community Policies. When we do this, we also send you a notice that your content violates our policies, how, and the action were taking. If you believe your content has been removed in error, you’ll have the opportunity to ask for a second look.
In general, three (3) policy violations will result in account restriction. We provide the opportunity to appeal an account restriction, and we may reinstate a restricted account if the member agrees to comply with these Professional Community Policies. Continued violations will result in permanent restriction from the LinkedIn platform.
For certain egregious violations of our Professional Community Policies (e.g., child sexual abuse material, terrorism, extremely violent content, egregious sexual harassment), we may permanently restrict your account after a single violation.
Content that would normally violate the letter of our policies may be allowed in cases where the content is being shared for awareness or to condemn. In these cases, we may label and obscure the content for members who may find this content sensitive or disturbing, or otherwise do not want to view it. However, we wont remove the content or penalize the author for posting it.

Be safe

Only bring safe conversations to Venture Backed.

2.

Do not post harassing content

We don’t allow bullying or harassment. This includes targeted personal attacks, intimidation, shaming, disparagement, and abusive language directed at other members. Do not reveal others’ personal or sensitive information (aka “doxing”), or incite others to do the same. You may not engage in trolling or other repetitive negative content that disrupts other members or conversations on the platform.

As a professional platform designed for the Venture Capital ecosystem, Venture Backed maintains a high standard for safe and civil conversations between members. Our policies prohibit a wide range of actions and behaviors associated with harassment, bullying, or other abusive conduct.

We remove content that personally attacks, intimidates, shames, bullies, disparages other Venture Backed members, or is otherwise abusive or uncivil.

Examples of Harassment or Abusive Content

We do allow for disagreements, commentary or criticism on policies and matters of public interest or organizations as long as they do not insult or vilify. Members may express heightened negative criticism and disapproval towards public figures, such as politicians, celebrities, prominent business leaders, or other individuals voluntarily in the public eye. We also allow members to call out the harassing, hateful, or otherwise abusive conduct of others, so long as the focus remains on driving objective awareness to the behavior, rather than personally attacking or inciting harassment against those individuals. Content that negatively targets others on the basis of inherent traits, like race or gender identity, is enforced under our Hateful and Derogatory Content policy (below).

Hateful and Derogatory Content

Hate speech, symbols, and groups are prohibited on Venture Backed. We remove content that attacks, denigrates, intimidates, dehumanizes, incites or threatens hatred, violence, prejudicial or discriminatory action against individuals or groups because of their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, or disability status.

Examples of Hateful or Derogatory Content

We may label rather than remove content that evokes hateful rhetoric (including slurs) in the context of counter speech, reclamation, or members personal experiences with racism, sexism, ableism, and other forms of prejudice or discrimination.

We also allow members to call out actual or perceived hateful, prejudicial, or discriminatory conduct, provided such content doesn’t otherwise violate our Harassing and inflammatory content policies.

3.

Do not threaten, incite, or promote violence

We don’t allow threatening or inciting violence of any kind. We don’t allow individuals or groups that engage in or promote violence, property damage, or organized criminal activity. You may not use LinkedIn to express support for such individuals or groups or to otherwise glorify violence.

We remove depictions of extreme violence, along with image or video content that is excessively gory, gruesome, or disturbingly shocking.

Examples of Violent or Graphic Content

Conversations on Venture Backed are often reflective of the world around us; which means that at any given time, our global member base may be impacted by military conflict, state actor violence, natural disasters, or catastrophic incidents. In cases where violent or graphic content is shared in connection with a newsworthy event, we may label such content instead of removing it from Venture Backed.

We also recognize that graphic content or content that may otherwise be sensitive for some members, may be shared to raise awareness or condemn. We wont penalize members for posting content in these circumstances, but we may take steps to label and obscure such content to protect other members who may not wish to see it.

4.

Do not share material depicting the exploitation of children

We have zero tolerance for content that depicts the sexual exploitation of children. Do not share, post, transmit, or solicit child exploitation material through or using our platform. Do not use Venture Backed in any way to facilitate, encourage, or engage in the abuse or exploitation of children. When we become aware of apparent child exploitation, we report it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

We remove content containing nudity or sexual activity.

Examples of Nudity and Adult Content

Some nudity or adult content may be allowed when it is not gratuitous and speaks to topics relevant to professional conversations on Venture Backed, such as breastfeeding or breast cancer awareness. In some cases we may still label this content as a notice to members that it might be sensitive.

5.

Do not promote, sell or attempt to purchase illegal or dangerous goods or services

We don’t allow content that facilitates the purchase of illegal or dangerous goods and/or services, prostitution, and escort services. We don’t allow content that promotes or distributes fake educational and/or professional certifications, sale of scraped data, proxy test-taking, or instructions on creating forged official documents. You may not use Venture Backed to hold lotteries, contests, sweepstakes, or giveaways without approval from Venture Backed Capital. Do not use Venture Backed to sensationalize or capitalize on tragic events for commercial purposes.

We don’t allow individuals or entities to engage in inappropriate or unsafe commercial transactions on our platform. We remove content that promotes, distributes, facilitates access to, or attempts to sell illegal or regulated goods and services.

6.

Do not share content promoting dangerous organizations or individuals

We don’t allow any terrorist organizations or violent extremist groups on our platform. And we don’t allow any individuals who affiliate with such organizations or groups to have a Venture Backed profile. Content that depicts terrorist activity, that is intended to recruit for terrorist organizations, or that threatens, promotes, or supports terrorism in any manner is not tolerated.

We do not allow organizations or individuals that espouse violence on Venture Backed, including terrorist organizations, violent extremist groups, and individuals affiliated with such groups or activity. We also restrict profiles and pages associated with dangerous organizations and individuals regardless of whether they have posted violative content.

Examples of Dangerous Organizations and Individual Content Types

Depictions of terrorist or violent extremist acts can sometimes raise awareness or condemn and there are instances when the context indicates that it was shared for one or both of those purposes. We wont penalize members for posting content in these circumstances, but we may take steps to label and obscure such content to protect other members who may not wish to see it.

7.

Be Trustworthy

We require you to use your true identity on Venture Backed, provide accurate information about yourself or your organization, and only share information that is real and authentic.

8.

Do not share false or misleading content

Do not share content in a way that you know is, or think may be, misleading or inaccurate, including misinformation or disinformation. Do not share content to interfere with or improperly influence an election or other civic process. We may prevent you from posting content from sites that are known to produce or contain misinformation. Do not share content that directly contradicts guidance from leading global health organizations and public health authorities; including false information about the safety or efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. Do not share false content or information, including news stories, as though they are true or likely true. Do not post deepfake images or videos of others or otherwise post content that has been manipulated to deceive. Do not share content or endorse someone or something in exchange for personal benefit (including personal or family relationships, monetary payment, free products or services, or other value), unless you have included a clear and conspicuous notice of the personal benefit you receive and have otherwise complied with our Advertising Policies.

It is a violation of Venture Backed’s Professional Community Policies to post false or misleading content. We remove specific claims, presented as fact, that are demonstrably false or substantially misleading. We also remove or label content that contains disputed claims relating to sensitive political or socially divisive topics.

9.

Do not create a fake profile or falsify information about yourself

We don’t allow fake profiles or entities. Do not post misleading or deceptive information about yourself, your business, your qualifications, work experience, affiliations, or achievements. Do not use an image of someone else, or any other image that is not your likeness, for your profile photo. Do not associate yourself on Venture Backed with a business or organization that you are not actually associated with. Do not use or attempt to use another person’s Venture Backed account or create a member profile for anyone other than yourself. And do not share your Venture Backed account with anyone else.

10.

Do not scam, defraud, deceive others

Do not use Venture Backed to facilitate romance scams, promote pyramid schemes, or otherwise defraud members. Do not share malicious software that puts our members, platform, or services at risk. Phishing attempts are not tolerated.

We don’t tolerate content intended to scam, defraud, or deceive others for monetary gain. We remove phishing links, malware, known or suspected scam content, and fraudulent content and permanently restrict the accounts of known fraudsters or scammers.

Examples of Scams or Fraud

We allow members to raise awareness and educate others about scams, as well as condemn fraudulent activities. However, well remove such content when it contains sensitive information, such as personally identifiable information, or functional phishing, malware, or scam links.

Be professional

Venture Backed Capitals mission is to connect the Venture Capital ecosystem to allow the ecosystem to be more productive, and by extension, more successful. We allow broad conversations about the world of Venture Capital and related topics, but require professional expression. To maintain a professional platform, members should treat each other with respect and civility. Do not interact with others or share content in a way that’s uncivil, inappropriate, or disrespectful.

11.

Do not be hateful

We don’t allow content that attacks, denigrates, intimidates, dehumanizes, incites or threatens hatred, violence, prejudicial or discriminatory action against individuals or groups because of their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, age, or disability status. Hate groups are not permitted on Venture Backed. Do not use racial, religious, or other slurs that incite or promote hatred, or any other content intended to create division. Do not post or share content that denies a well-documented historical event such as the Holocaust or Slavery in the United States.

12.

Do not engage in sexual innuendos or unwanted advances

We don’t allow unwanted expressions of attraction, desire, requests for romantic relationship, marriage proposals, sexual advances or innuendo, or lewd remarks. Venture Backed is a professional networking platform, not a dating site. Do not use Venture Backed to pursue romantic connections, ask for romantic dates, or provide sexual commentary on someone’s appearance or perceived attractiveness. Do not send unwanted advances in messages, posts, or comments or send sexually explicit images to anyone on the platform.

Members come to Venture Backed to foster professional connections, learn new skills, and connect to economic opportunity, not to be sexually harassed or subjected to unwanted advances. We remove content that expresses physical or sexual attraction towards others, requests a romantic relationship, or subjects others to sexually suggestive or explicit content.

13.

Do not share harmful or shocking material

We don’t allow content that is excessively gruesome or shocking. This includes content that is sadistic or gratuitously graphic, such as the depiction of bodily injury, severe physical or sexual violence. We don’t allow content, activities, or events that promote, organize, depict, or facilitate criminal activity. We also don’t allow content depicting or promoting instructional weapon making, drug abuse, and threats of theft. Do not engage in or promote escort services, prostitution, exploitation of children, or human trafficking.

Do not share content or activities that promote or encourage suicide or any type of self-injury, including self-mutilation and eating disorders. If you see signs that someone may be considering self-harm, please report it using our reporting tools and consider also reporting it to your local law enforcement authorities.

14.

Do not spam members or the platform

We don’t allow untargeted, irrelevant, obviously unwanted, unauthorized, in appropriately commercial or promotional, or gratuitously repetitive messages or similar content. Do not use our invitation feature to send promotional messages to people you don’t know or to otherwise spam people. Please make the effort to create original, professional, relevant, and interesting content in order to gain engagement. Don’t do things to artificially increase engagement with your content. Respond authentically to others content and don’t agree with others ahead of time to like or re-share each others content.

The quality of conversations on Venture Backed depends on healthy, relevant content. We may remove or limit the distribution of content designed to artificially increase engagement through misuse or misrepresentation of Venture Backed features.

Not sure what is right place for you to invest? Let’s talk.

Privacy policy

Venture Backed’s mission is to connect the Venture Capital ecosystem to allow the ecosystem to be more productive, and by extension, more successful. We at Venture Backed believe that by bringing together knowledgeable, experienced experts and operators from key facets of the Venture Capital Ecosystem to share their experiences, advice, and knowledge; we will be able to foster a supportive environment where more early-stage companies perform well, raise more capital and create stronger returns for themselves and their stakeholder’s long term. Our services are designed to promote economic opportunity for our members by enabling you and the entirety of the Venture Capital ecosystem to meet, network, exchange ideas, learn, and find opportunities or employees, work, and make decisions within a community of trusted relationships.

This Privacy Policy applies when you use our Services (described below). We offer our users choices about the data we collect, use and share as described in this Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and Settings.

1.

Introduction

Venture Backed is an online digital engagement and social networking platform specifically designed for the Venture Capital ecosystem. People use our Services to find and be found for business opportunities, to connect with others, network, attend online events and find information. Our Privacy Policy applies to any Member or Visitor to our Services.

Our registered users (“Members”) share their professional identities, engage with their network, exchange knowledge and professional insights, post and view relevant content, learn and develop skills, and find business and career opportunities. Content and data on some of our Services is viewable to non-members (“Visitors”). We use the term “Designated Countries” to refer to countries in the European Union (EU), European Economic Area (EEA), and Switzerland.

Services

This Privacy Policy, including our Cookie Policy applies to your use of our Services. This Privacy Policy applies to to venturebacked.co, community.venturebacked.co, venture backed-branded apps, and other Venture Backed Capital-related sites, apps, communications and other services that state that they are offered be Venture Backed Capital or the Venture Backed Community platform (“Services”), including off-site Services, such as our ad services, but excluding services that state that they are offered under a different privacy policy. For California residents, additional disclosures required by California law may be found in our California Privacy Disclosure.

Data Controllers and Contracting Parties

If you are in the “Designated Countries”, Venture Backed Capital LLC (“Venture Backed”) will be the controller of your personal data provided to, or collected by or for, or processed in connection with our Services.

If you are outside of the Designated Countries, Venture Backed Capital LLC will be the controller of your personal data provided to, or collected by or for, or processed in connection with, our Services.

As a Visitor or Member of our Services, the collection, use and sharing of your personal data is subject to this Privacy Policy and other documents referenced in this Privacy Policy, as well as updates.

Change

Changes to the Privacy Policy apply to your use of our Services after the “effective date.”

Venture Backed Capital (“we” or “us”) can modify this Privacy Policy, and if we make material changes to it, we will provide notice through our Services, or by other means, to provide you the opportunity to review the changes before they become effective. If you object to any changes, you may close your account.

You acknowledge that your continued use of our Services after we publish or send a notice about our changes to this Privacy Policy means that the collection, use and sharing of your personal data is subject to the updated Privacy Policy, as of its effective date.

1.1 Data You Provide To Us

You provide data to create an account with us.

Registration

To create an account you need to provide data including your name, email address and/or mobile number, and a password. When registering, you will need to provide payment (e.g., credit card) and billing information to subscribe and gain usable access to the Venture Backed Community platform.

You create your Venture Backed Community platform profile (a complete profile helps you get the most from our Services).

Profile

You have choices about the information on your profile, such as your education, work experience, skills, photo, city or area, licenses, certification and biography. You don’t have to provide additional information on your profile; however, profile information helps you to get more from our Services, including helping business opportunities find you. It’s your choice whether to include sensitive information on your profile and to make that sensitive information public. Please do not post or add personal data to your profile that you would not want to be publicly available.

You give other data to us, such as by syncing your social profiles from other platforms, address book or calendar.

Posting and Uploading

We collect personal data from you when you provide, post or upload it to our Services, such as when you fill out a form, (e.g., with demographic data or salary), respond to a survey, or register for an event on our Services. If you opt to import your address book, we receive your contacts (including contact information your service provider(s) or app automatically added to your address book when you communicated with addresses or numbers not already in your list).

If you sync your contacts or calendars with our Services, we will collect your address book and calendar meeting information to keep growing your network by suggesting connections for you and others, and by providing information about events, e.g. times, places, attendees and contacts. You don’t have to post or upload personal data; though if you don’t, it may limit your ability to grow and engage with your network over our Services.

1.2 Data From Others

Others may post or write about you

Content and News

You and others may post content that includes information about you (as part of articles, posts, comments, videos) on our Services. We also may collect public information about you, such as professional-related news and accomplishments, and make it available as part of our Services, including, as permitted by your settings, in notifications to others of mentions in the news.

Others may sync their contacts or calendar with our Services

1.2 Data From Others

Others may post or write about you

Content and News

Contact and Calendar Information

We receive personal data (including contact information) about you when others import or sync their contacts or calendar with our Services, associate their contacts with Member profiles, scan and upload business cards, or send messages using our Services (including invites or connection requests). If you or others opt-in to sync email accounts with our Services, we will also collect “email header” information that we can associate with Member profiles.

Customers and partners may provide data to us.

Partners

We receive personal data (e.g., your job title and work email address) about you when you use the services of our customers and partners, such as employers or prospective employers and applicant tracking systems providing us job application data.

Related Companies and Other Services

We receive data about you when you use some of the other services provided by us or our affiliates.

1.3 Service Use

We log your visits and use of our Services, including mobile apps. We log usage data when you visit or otherwise use our Services, including our sites, app and platform technology, such as when you view or click on content (e.g., learning video) or ads (on or off our sites and apps), perform a search, install or update one of our mobile apps, share articles or register for events. We use log-ins, cookies, device information and internet protocol (“IP”) addresses to identify you and log your use.

1.4 Cookies and Similar Technologies

We collect data through cookies and similar technologies.

As further described in our Cookie Policy, we use cookies and similar technologies (e.g., pixels and ad tags) to collect data (e.g., device IDs) to recognize you and your device(s) on, off and across different services and devices where you have engaged with our Services. We also allow some others to use cookies as described in our Cookie Policy. If you are outside the Designated Countries, we also collect (or rely on others who collect) information about your device where you have not engaged with our Services (e.g., ad ID, IP address, operating system and browser information) so we can provide our Members with relevant ads and better understand their effectiveness. You can opt out from our use of data from cookies and similar technologies that track your behavior on the sites of others for ad targeting and other ad-related purposes.

1.5 Your Device and Location

We receive data through cookies and similar technologies

When you visit or leave our Services (including some plugins and our cookies or similar technology on the sites of others), we receive the URL of both the site you came from and the one you go to and the time of your visit. We also get information about your network and device (e.g., IP address, proxy server, operating system, web browser and add-ons, device identifier and features, cookie IDs and/or ISP, or your mobile carrier). If you use our Services from a mobile device, that device will send us data about your location based on your phone settings. We will ask you to opt-in before we use GPS or other tools to identify your precise location.

1.6 Messages

If you communicate through our Services, we learn about that.

We collect information about you when you send, receive, or engage with messages in connection with our Services. For example, if you get a Venture Backed Community connection request, we track whether you have acted on it and will send you reminders. We also use automatic scanning technology on messages to support and protect our site. For example, we use this technology to suggest possible responses to messages and to manage or block content that violates our User Agreement or Professional Community Policies from our Services.

1.7 Workplace and School Provided Information

When your organization (e.g., employer or school) buys a subscription membership for you to use, they give us data about you.

Others buying our Services for your use, such as your employer or your school, provide us with personal data about you and your eligibility to use the Services that they purchase for use by their workers, students or alumni. For example, we will get contact information for “Company Page” administrators and for authorizing users of our Services, such as our events, sales, webinars, workshops or podcasts.

1.8 Sites and Services of Others

We get data when you visit sites that include our ads, cookies.

1.9 Other

We are improving our Services, which means we get new data and create new ways to use data.

Our Services are dynamic, and we often introduce new features, which may require the collection of new information. If we collect materially different personal data or materially change how we collect, use or share your data, we will notify you and may also modify this Privacy Policy.

Affiliates

Affiliates are companies controlling, controlled by or under common control with us, including, for example, VBC Holding Corp Inc., Venture Backed Capital LLC, TSF Global (and its subsidiaries), The Scott Family Foundation Intl. and The Scott Family Office Intl.

2.

How We Use Your Data

We use your data to provide, support, personalize and develop our Services.

How we use your personal data will depend on which Services you use, how you use those Services and the choices you make in your settings. We use the data that we have about you to provide and personalize our Services, including with the help of automated systems and inferences we make, so that our Services (including ads) can be more relevant and useful to you and others.

2.1 Services

Our Services help you connect with others, find and be found for work and business opportunities, stay informed, get training, attend events and be more productive.

We use your data to authorize access to our Services and honor your settings.

Stay Connected

Our Services allow you to stay in touch and up to date with colleagues, partners, clients, and other professional contacts. To do so, you can “connect” with the professionals who you choose, and who also wish to “connect” with you. Subject to your and their settings, when you connect with other Members, you will be able to search each others’ connections in order to exchange professional opportunities.

We use data about you (such as your profile, profiles you have viewed or data provided through address book uploads or partner integrations) to help others find your profile, suggest connections for you and others (e.g. Members who share your contacts or job experiences) and enable you to invite others to become a Member and connect with you. You can also opt-in to allow us to use your precise location or proximity to others for certain tasks (e.g. to suggest other nearby Members for you to connect with, calculate the commute to a new job, or notify your connections that you are at a professional event). It is your choice whether to invite someone to our Services, send a connection request, or allow another Member to become your connection. When you invite someone to connect with you, your invitation will include your network and basic profile information (e.g., name, profile photo, job title, region). We will send invitation reminders to the person you invited. You can choose whether or not to share your own list of connections with your connections.

Stay Informed

Our Services allow you to stay informed about news, events and ideas regarding professional topics you care about, and from professionals you respect. Our Services also allow you to improve your professional skills, or learn new ones. We use the data we have about you (e.g., data you provide, data we collect from your engagement with our Services and inferences we make from the data we have about you), to personalize our Services for you, such as by recommending or ranking relevant content and conversations on our Services. We also use the data we have about you to suggest skills you could add to your profile and skills that you might need to pursue your next opportunity.

So, if you let us know that you are interested in a new skill (e.g., by watching a learning video), we will use this information to personalize content in your feed, suggest that you follow certain members on our site, or suggest related learning content to help you towards that new skill. We use your content, activity and other data, including your name and photo, to provide notices to your network and others. For example, subject to your settings, we may notify others that you have updated your profile, posted content, took a social action, used a feature, made new connections or were mentioned in the news.

Career

Our Services allow you to explore careers, evaluate educational opportunities, and seek out, and be found for, career opportunities. Your profile can be found by those looking to hire (for a job or a specific task) or be hired by you. We will use your data to recommend jobs, mentees, mentors, advisors, partners, service providers, Accelerators, Incubators, VC’s and Angel Investor, show you and others relevant professional contacts (e.g., who work at a company, in an industry, function or location or have certain skills and connections).

You can signal that you are interested in changing jobs and share information other members relevant to that information. We will use your data to recommend jobs to you. We may use automated systems to provide content and recommendations to help make our Services more relevant to our Members and customers. Keeping your profile accurate and up-to-date may help you better connect to others and to opportunities through our Services.

Productivity

Our Services allow you to collaborate with colleagues, search for potential clients, customers, partners and others to do business with. Our Services allow you to communicate with other Members and schedule and prepare meetings with them. If your settings allow, we scan messages to provide “bots” or similar tools that facilitate tasks such as scheduling meetings, drafting responses, summarizing messages or recommending next steps.

2.2 Communications

We contact you and enable communications between Members. We offer settings to control what messages you receive and how often you receive some types of messages.

We will contact you through email, mobile phone, notices posted on our websites or apps, messages to your LinkedIn inbox, and other ways through our Services, including text messages and push notifications. We will send you messages about the availability of our Services, security, or other service-related issues. We also send messages about how to use our Services, network updates, reminders, job suggestions and promotional messages from us and our partners. You may change your communication preferences at any time. Please be aware that you cannot opt out of receiving service messages from us, including security and legal notices. We also enable communications between you and others through our Services, including for example invitations, live chats, groups and messages between connections.

2.3 Advertising

We serve you tailored ads both on and off our Services. We offer you choices regarding personalized ads, but you cannot opt-out of seeing other ads.

We target (and measure the performance of) ads to Members, Visitors and others both on and off our Services directly or through a variety of partners, using the following data, whether separately or combined:

Data from advertising technologies on and off our Services, pixels, ad tags, cookies, and device identifiers;
Member-provided information (e.g., profile, contact information, title and industry);
Data from your use of our Services (e.g., search history, feed, content you read, who you follow or is following you, connections, groups participation, page visits, videos you watch, clicking on an ad, etc.), including as described in Section 1.3;
Information from advertising partners, vendors and publishers; and
Information inferred from data described above (e.g., using job titles from a profile to infer industry, seniority, and compensation bracket; using graduation dates to infer age or using first names or pronoun usage to infer gender; using your feed activity to infer your interests; or using device data to recognize you as a Member).

We will show you ads called sponsored content which look similar to non-sponsored content, except that they are labeled as advertising (e.g., as “ad” or “sponsored”). If you take a social action (such as like, comment or share) on these ads, your action is associated with your name and viewable by others, including the advertiser. Subject to your settings, if you take a social action on the Venture Backed Community platform Services, that action may be mentioned with related ads. For example, when you like a company we may include your name and photo when their sponsored content is shown.

Ad Choices

We adhere to self-regulatory principles for interest-based advertising and participate in industry opt-outs from such ads. This does not opt you out of receiving advertising; you will continue to get other ads by advertisers not listed with these self regulatory tools. You can also opt-out specifically from our uses of certain categories of data to show you more relevant ads.

Info to Ad Providers

We do not share your personal data with any third-party advertisers or ad networks except for: (i) hashed IDs or device identifiers (to the extent they are personal data in some countries); (ii) with your separate permission (e.g., in a lead generation form) or (iii) data already visible to any users of the Services (e.g., profile). However, if you view or click on an ad on or off our Services, the ad provider will get a signal that someone visited the page that displayed the ad, and they may, through the use of mechanisms such as cookies, determine it is you. Advertising partners can associate personal data collected by the advertiser directly from you with hashed IDs or device identifiers received from us. In such instances, we seek to contractually require such advertising partners to obtain your explicit, opt-in consent before doing so.

2.4 Marketing

We promote our Services to you and others. In addition to advertising our Services, we use Members’ data and content for invitations and communications promoting membership and network growth, engagement and our Services, such as by showing your connections that you have used a feature on our Services.

2.5 Developing Services and Research

We develop our Services and conduct research

Service Development

We use data, including public feedback, to conduct research and development for our Services in order to provide you and others with a better, more intuitive and personalized experience, drive membership growth and engagement on our Services, and help connect professionals to each other and to economic opportunity.

Other Research

We seek to create economic opportunity for Members of the global Venture Capital ecosystem and to help them be more productive and successful. We use the personal data available to us to research social, economic, investing and workplace trends, such as jobs availability and skills needed for these jobs and policies that help bridge the gap in various industries and geographic areas. In some cases, we work with trusted third parties to perform this research, under controls that are designed to protect your privacy. We publish or allow others to publish economic insights, presented as aggregated data rather than personal data.

Surveys

Polls and surveys are conducted by us and others through our Services. You are not obligated to respond to polls or surveys, and you have choices about the information you provide. You may opt-out of survey invitations.

2.6 Customer Support

We use data to help you and fix problems. We use data (which can include your communications) to investigate, respond to and resolve complaints and for Service issues (e.g., bugs).

2.7 Insights That Do Not Identify You

We use data to generate insights that do not identify you. We use your data to produce and share insights that do not identify you. For example, we may use your data to generate statistics about our members, their profession or industry, to calculate ad impressions served or clicked on, or to publish visitor demographics for a Service or create demographic insights relating to the Venture Capital industry.

2.8 Security and Investigations

We use data for security, fraud prevention and investigations. We use your data (including your communications) for security purposes or to prevent or investigate possible fraud or other violations of our User Agreement and/or attempts to harm our Members, Visitors or others.

3.

How We Share Information

3.1 Our Services

Any data that you include on your profile and any content you post or social action (e.g., likes, follows, comments, shares) you take on our Services will be seen by others, consistent with your settings.

Profile

Your profile is fully visible to all Members and customers of our Services. Subject to your settings, it can also be visible to others on or off of our Services (e.g., Visitors to our Services or users of third- party search engines). Your settings, degree of connection with the viewing Member, the subscriptions they may have, their usage of our Services, access channels and search types (e.g., by name or by keyword) impact the availability of your profile and whether they can view certain fields in your profile.

Posts, Likes, Follows, Comments, Messages

Our Services allow viewing and sharing information including through posts, likes, follows and comments.

When you share an article or a post (e.g., an update, image, video or article) publicly it can be viewed by everyone and re-shared anywhere (subject to your settings). Members, Visitors and others will be able to find and see your publicly-shared content, including your name (and photo if you have provided one).
In a group, posts are visible to others in the group. Your membership in groups is public and part of your profile, but you can change visibility in your settings.
Any information you share through companies’ or other organizations’ pages on our Services will be viewable by it and others who visit those pages.
When you follow a person or organization, you are visible to others and that “page owner” as a follower.
We let senders know when you act on their message, subject to your settings where applicable.
Subject to your settings, we let a Member know when you view their profile.
When you like or re-share or comment on another’s content (including ads), others will be able to view these “social actions” and associate it with you (e.g., your name, profile and photo if you provided it).

Your employer, school or others can see how you use Services they provided for your use (e.g. as a venture scout etc..) and related information. We will not show them your job searches or personal messages.

3.2 Communication Archival

Regulated Members may need to store communications outside of our Service. Some Members (or their employers) need, for legal or professional compliance, to archive their communications and social media activity, and will use services of others to provide these archival services. We enable archiving of messages by and to those Members outside of our Services. For example, a financial advisor needs to archive communications with her clients through our Services in order to maintain her professional financial advisor license.

3.3 Others’ Services

In the future, you may have the ability to link your account with others’ services so that they can look up your contacts’ profiles, post your shares on such platforms, or enable you to start conversations with your connections on such platforms. Excerpts from your profile will also appear on the services of others.

Subject to your settings, other services may look up your profile. When you opt to link your account with other services, personal data will become available to them. The sharing and use of that personal data will be described in, or linked to, a consent screen when you opt to link the accounts. For example, you may link your Twitter or WeChat account to share content from our Services into these other services, or your email provider may give you the option to upload your Venture Backed Community platform contacts into its own service. Third-party services have their own privacy policies, and you may be giving them permission to use your data in ways we would not. You may revoke the link with such accounts.

Subject to your settings, excerpts from your profile will appear on the services of others (e.g., search engine results, mail and calendar applications that show a user limited profile data of the person they are meeting or messaging, social media aggregators, talent and lead managers). “Old” profile information remains on these services until they update their data cache with changes you made to your profile.

3.4 Related Services

We share your data across our different Services and Venture Backed Capital affiliated entities. We will share your personal data with our affiliates to provide and develop our Services. We may combine information internally across the different Services covered by this Privacy Policy to help our Services be more relevant and useful to you and others. For example, we may personalize your feed or job recommendations based on your learning history.

3.5 Service Providers

We may use others to help us with our Services. We use others to help us provide our Services (e.g., maintenance, analysis, audit, payments, fraud detection, marketing and development). They will have access to your information as reasonably necessary to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for other purposes.

3.6 Legal Disclosures

We may need to share your data when we believe it’s required by law or to help protect the rights and safety of you, us or others.

It is possible that we will need to disclose information about you when required by law, subpoena, or other legal process or if we have a good faith belief that disclosure is reasonably necessary to (1) investigate, prevent or take action regarding suspected or actual illegal activities or to assist government enforcement agencies; (2) enforce our agreements with you; (3) investigate and defend ourselves against any third-party claims or allegations; (4) protect the security or integrity of our Services (such as by sharing with companies facing similar threats); or (5) exercise or protect the rights and safety of the Venture Backed Community platform, our Members, personnel or others. We attempt to notify Members about legal demands for their personal data when appropriate in our judgment, unless prohibited by law or court order or when the request is an emergency. We may dispute such demands when we believe, in our discretion, that the requests are overbroad, vague or lack proper authority, but we do not promise to challenge every demand.

3.7 Change in Control or Sale

We may share your data if our business is sold to others, but it must continue to be used in accordance with this Privacy Policy. We can also share your personal data as part of a sale, merger or change in control, or in preparation for any of these events. Any other entity which buys us or part of our business will have the right to continue to use your data, but only in the manner set out in this Privacy Policy unless you agree otherwise.

4.

Your Choices & Obligations

4.1 Data Retention

We keep most of your personal data for as long as your account is open. We generally retain your personal data as long as you keep your account open or as needed to provide you Services. This includes data you or others provided to us and data generated or inferred from your use of our Services. Even if you only use our Services when looking for a new opportunity every few years, we will retain your information and keep your profile open, unless you close your account. In some cases we choose to retain certain information (e.g., insights about Services use) in a depersonalized or aggregated form.

4.2 Rights to Access and Control Your Personal Data

You can access or delete your personal data. You have many choices about how your data is collected, used and shared. We provide many choices about the collection, use and sharing of your data, from deleting or correcting data you include in your profile and controlling the visibility of your posts to advertising opt-outs and communication controls. We offer you settings to control and manage the personal data we have about you.

For personal data that we have about you, you can:

Delete Data: You can ask us to erase or delete all or some of your personal data (e.g., if it is no longer necessary to provide Services to you).
Change or Correct Data: You can edit some of your personal data through your account. You can also ask us to change, update or fix your data in certain cases, particularly if it’s inaccurate.
Object to, or Limit or Restrict, Use of Data: You can ask us to stop using all or some of your personal data (e.g., if we have no legal right to keep using it) or to limit our use of it (e.g., if your personal data is inaccurate or unlawfully held).
Right to Access and/or Take Your Data: You can ask us for a copy of your personal data and can ask for a copy of personal data you provided in machine readable form.

You may also contact us using the contact information below, and we will consider your request in accordance with applicable laws. Residents in the Designated Countries and other regions may have additional rights under their laws.

4.3 Account Closure

We keep some of your data even after you close your account.

If you choose to close your Venture Backed Community platform account, your personal data will generally stop being visible to others on our Services within 24 hours. We generally delete closed account information within 30 days of account closure, except as noted below.

We retain your personal data even after you have closed your account if reasonably necessary to comply with our legal obligations (including law enforcement requests), meet regulatory requirements, resolve disputes, maintain security, prevent fraud and abuse (e.g., if we have restricted your account for breach of our Professional Community Policies), enforce our User Agreement, or fulfill your request to “unsubscribe” from further messages from us. We will retain de-personalized information after your account has been closed.

Information you have shared with others (e.g., through messages, updates or group posts) will remain visible after you close your account or delete the information from your own profile or mailbox, and we do not control data that other Members have copied out of our Services. Groups content and ratings or review content associated with closed accounts will show an unknown user as the source. Your profile may continue to be displayed in the services of others (e.g., search engine results) until they refresh their cache.

5.

Other Important Information

5.1. Security

We monitor for and try to prevent security breaches. Please use the security features available through our Services. We implement security safeguards designed to protect your data, such as HTTPS. We regularly monitor our systems for possible vulnerabilities and attacks. However, we cannot warrant the security of any information that you send us. There is no guarantee that data may not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards. For your security, all Members have the ability to enable two-factor authentication on their accounts to further protect themselves from potential unauthorized access and data breaches.

5.2. Cross-Border Data Transfers

We store and use your data outside your country. We process data both inside and outside of the United States and rely on legally-provided mechanisms to lawfully transfer data across borders. Countries where we process data may have laws which are different from, and potentially not as protective as, the laws of your own country.

5.3 Lawful Bases for Processing

We have lawful bases to collect, use and share data about you. You have choices about our use of your data. At any time, you can withdraw consent you have provided by going to settings.

We will only collect and process personal data about you where we have lawful bases. Lawful bases include consent (where you have given consent), contract (where processing is necessary for the performance of a contract with you (e.g., to deliver the Venture Backed Community platform Services you have requested) and “legitimate interests.”

Where we rely on your consent to process personal data, you have the right to withdraw or decline your consent at any time and where we rely on legitimate interests, you have the right to object. If you have any questions about the lawful bases upon which we collect and use your personal data, please contact us.

5.4 Direct Marketing and Do Not Track Signals

Our statements regarding direct marketing and “do not track” signals. We currently do not share personal data with third parties for their direct marketing purposes without your permission.

5.5. Contact Information

You can contact us or use other options to resolve any complaints. If you have questions or complaints regarding this Policy, please first contact Venture Backed Capital online. You can also reach us by physical mail. Residents in the Designated Countries and other regions may also have the right to contact us online. If this does not resolve your complaint, Residents in the Designated Countries and other regions may have more options under their laws.

Consent

Where we process data based on consent, we will ask for your explicit consent. You may withdraw your consent at any time, but that will not affect the lawfulness of the processing of your personal data prior to such withdrawal. Where we rely on contract, we will ask that you agree to the processing of personal data that is necessary for entering into or performance of your contract with us. We will rely on legitimate interests as a basis for data processing where the processing of your data is not overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms.