Privacy Policy

You can see our previous Privacy Policy here

Updated October 10, 2024

What does this policy cover?

We are F6S Network Limited (registered number 08522020), whose registered office is at 124 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX, United Kingdom (“our”, “us” and “we”). We will refer to you as “you” and “your”.

We value your privacy and the security of your data and we want to be transparent about the collection, use and sharing of information about you. This Privacy Policy is for your use of the services we make available (“Service(s)”) and our website (f6s.com and related sites). It also applies to your interaction with us through other means such as customer service, discussing or contracting one of our professional services, direct conversations and events.

This Privacy Policy is part of our group of Policies as set out in our Terms of Service which provides information that is likely to be useful to complement this Privacy Policy. Please do not access or use the Services or website if you do not agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy or any of the other Policies.

We have produced this Privacy Policy to communicate and explain how we process personal information that we collect about you when you use the Services and interact with us such as:

  • how we collect information about you;
  • how we use information we collect;
  • how we control your information;
  • how we store and secure your information;
  • how your information is shared;
  • how we transfer your information to other countries; and
  • additional information we think might be useful to you.

You have choices about the use of personal information which we hold about you. You can access, update and request the removal of the information we hold about you. If you don’t agree with the Policies, please do not access or use the Services, or interact with us.

What information do we collect about you?

We collect information, including your personal information, to provide the Services. In order for us to provide the Services to you, we need to collect and use personal information as described in this Privacy Policy and the other Policies. We collect information about you when you provide it to us through use of the Services as well when it is provided by another source - we talk more about this below. For the purposes of the applicable data legislation, we are the ‘data controller’ in respect of your personal information. In general, we are responsible for the Policies and the handling of your personal information.

Information you give us. This includes personal information that you provide to us when you use the Services by directly inputting it or by other means. Our Services change from time to time so the options for the information you provide (as with other information) may change. Also, the personal information may vary depending on how you interact with the services. For example, it is possible to create an account using an email or by using a social login, and different types of profiles you use to connect with opportunities may have different items to complete.

Here are some examples on how we process your personal data:

Purposes/activity

Data Collected

Legal basis for processing

To communicate with you about the Services and assist you in using our services
First and last name, email address, subject matter and message details which you volunteer to us
Your consent

Subject to our contract of services with you
To allow you to set up or log into your F6S account when you choose to use an email address
First and last name, email address, IP address
Subject to entering into a contract of services with you
To allow you to set up or log into your F6S account when you choose to use a sign-in/log-in provider
First and last name, email address, profile picture (if provided by you via a third party registration or login such as Google, LinkedIn or Facebook)
Subject to entering into a contract of services with you
In cases where you pay us for all or any part of the Service, or if we need to send you money
Payment details such as bank account details, direct debit details, names of people responsible for payment or billing contacts, payment card details (we do not store payment card details)
Subject to entering into a contract of services with you
So you can use our Services for activities like applying to opportunities, posting to discussion boards, sending or replying to messages to/from other users etc
Data you post when performing activities such as posting to a discussion board, sending a message to other user(s), replying to a message you receive in your email or other location, starting or updating an application, connecting with an opportunity, providing us with feedback or uploading a file
Our Legitimate Interests in helping users that may have common interests or goals to connect with one another
To comply with anti-money laundering and other applicable regulations
Personal income and tax information, identification information (only in certain cases)
Compliance with our legal obligations
To process job applications from candidates for employment within our organization
First and last name, email address, CV details, phone number, professional qualifications, references, confirmation that you are 18 years or older etc
Your consent

Subject to entering into a contract of employment with you/prior to entering into a contract of employment
So you can apply to jobs posted by other users
First and last name, location, skills, email address, work experience, educational background, recommendations etc
Our Legitimate Interests in helping users that may have common interests or goals to connect with one another
To recommend you relevant jobs
Location, skills, work experience, your job preferences
Our Legitimate Interests in helping users that may have common interests or goals to connect with one another
To assist the proper operation and functionality of our site
IP address, browser type, user behavior, device ID, user agent, operating system and other online identifiers collected from Cookies or similar technologies
The processing is necessary to support our legitimate interests in managing our business and maintaining website and platform security
To analyze, improve and tailor our website, services and content in line with user preferences
IP address, location data, browser type, cookie preferences
Your consent
To personalize our content to you, make recommendations on how users can develop connections with other users
Activity and other data such as your skills and interests, work experience, educational background, entities you’re associated with, topics and content you visit
Our Legitimate Interests in helping users that may have common interests or goals to connect with one another
To suggest that others connect with you, to recommend other users for you to connect or interact with based on similar activities. For example, to connect you with a user of the Service that is conducting an event in your area, or to identify you as a potential candidate to another user of the Service that is operating a start-up program or fund
Information about you that you’ve submitted such as skills, interests, work experience, educational background, location etc
Our Legitimate Interests in assisting users to connect with one another and to provide feedback to one another
Other users of the Service may provide information about you when they add information during their use of the Service. As examples, an evaluator for a start-up program you’ve connected with on F6S may give you a numeric score or leave a review of your service
Information submitted about you by other users of the Service
Our Legitimate Interests in assisting users to connect with one another and to provide feedback to one another
So you can engage in surveys asked by other users or F6S, which you are free to engage in or decline
Subject matter of having completed a survey
Your consent
To generate research and reports - we write and publish information, articles and content in relation to startups, companies, industries, markets and other areas related to our community
User name, tagline, regional location, associated entities, text mentioning a user, work experience, educational background and other relevant data
Our Legitimate Interests in gaining and sharing insights into user trends and and understanding how our services are used
So you can connect about a product/service, get a deal such as hosting, email infrastructure or travel or engage about a company, job interest and other relevant areas
User name, tagline, regional location, associated entities, text mentioning a user, educational background, work experience and other relevant data
Our Legitimate Interests in assisting users to connect with one another and to provide feedback to one another
We notify you or another Service user that you are using the Services based on information you have provided
Activity data such as click-throughs, educational background or company affiliations
Our Legitimate Interests in assisting users to connect with one another and to provide feedback to one another
So you can connect with other users of the Service, such as a start-up program, and in order for them to evaluate delivering the opportunity you are interested in receiving from them
Your startup or company private information profile, your contact information including email and the profile information for those associated with startup or company
Our Legitimate Interests in assisting users to connect with one another and to provide feedback to one another
In order to provide an integrated experience, your information is available across the various aspects of the Service. For example, the skills you enter on your personal profile may be used to help a start-up program you connect with understand what you know how to do as well as identify job opportunities that match you. We believe that this allows us to provide you with an enhanced user experience in respect of the Service
Your profile data and content
Our Legitimate Interests in assisting users to connect with one another and to provide feedback to one another
To perform our legal rights and responsibilities - we may use personal information about users as required by law and in addressing any fraudulent or illegal activities, related to any legal claim, regulatory requirements, audits, disclosures in the event of an acquisition, merger or sale and compliance activities
User activity or profile data
The processing is necessary to support our legitimate interests in managing our business and maintaining website and platform security

Compliance with our legal obligations
To improve the Services - We use feedback, aggregated data and may use your information as well to make the Services work better, faster, more securely and more in line with user needs. As an example, we use the search terms that users look for on the Services to identify new features that are in demand and which we believe we should develop further
Feedback you provide, IP address, browser type, user behavior, device ID, user agent, operating system and other online identifiers collected from Cookies or similar technologies
The processing is necessary to support our legitimate interests in improving our services and acting on feedback from users
To improve deals, products and services that users can find on the Services
Your profile data, your review of a product or service, your feedback on your experience with a deal or product from another user, users asking for feedback on their experience of a deal or product provided by your profile or account
Our Legitimate Interests in assisting users to connect with one another and to provide feedback to one another
We may contact other users asking for feedback on their experience of a deal or product provided by your profile or account
Your profile data, reviews of a product or service provided by you
Our Legitimate Interests in assisting users to connect with one another and to provide feedback to one another.
To provide Accountancy, R&D Tax, Grant and other similar professional services
We access and store information comprised in submissions made with our assistance to government agencies and organizations, and communications with those agencies by you on your behalf. Examples are name, address, location, email address, phone number, tax identification information and relevant data
Subject to our contract of services with you
To ensure service quality and verification of conversations in cases where we engage via telephone
Recorded telephone conversations (in certain cases)
Your consent

Information we get about you from others. This is information we receive that you do not directly provide when you use the Service. We get it from other users of the Service, third-party services we use to provide the Services, from information we collect and from our partners and vendors in the following circumstances:

  • Other users of the Service may provide information about you when they add information during their use of the Service. As examples, an evaluator for a start-up program you’ve connected with on F6S may give you a numeric score or leave a review of your service.
  • Other third-party services you may choose to connect to your account - You can choose to authorize us to access information from your calendar, email or other service accounts. For example, you may do this so we can help you find out how you’re connected to other people and try to relate the items to your deal flow tools or other features. If you authorize us to access that information, we receive items such as email sender, receiver information, the content of your and your calendar appointments until you remove our access. If you don't specifically choose to authorize access, we don't get this information. The information we get from these services depends on the settings and permissions you choose, as well as this Privacy Policy that is controlled by the third-party service. We recommend you always check these settings and permissions to understand the information that would be shared with us;

How we use the personal information we collect

Our use of the personal information we collect depends on how you use the Services, as well as the settings and preferences you’ve provided to us.

In cases where consent is used as a legal basis for processing your personal data, you have the right to withdraw your consent to use your personal information for a specific purpose at any time. Removing your consent will not change any processing that has already occurred. If you do withdraw your consent, and if we do not have another legal basis for processing your personal information, then we will stop processing your personal information. If we do have another legal basis for processing your personal information, then we may continue to do so subject to your legal rights. If we are processing your personal information because we or a third-party have a legitimate interest, you have the right to object to this processing, but this may mean that it is no longer possible for you to use the Services.

How we share information we collect

We provide a Service that is a community where users share and collaborate together. This means that information is shared throughout the Services and with third-parties. Our business is not to sell personal information, rather our goal is to offer you the best collaborative community possible. We will share your personal information with our third-party service providers as required to deliver the Services, and in compliance with our legal obligations. These third parties are also committed to safeguarding your personal data.

Sharing and Collaborating with other users in the Services’ community

When you connect with other users of the Platform - You connect with other users of the Services by a variety of means. When you connect with another Service user, you give them permission to see, share, edit, copy and download information you add to the Services. Examples of connections include applying to a start-up program, expressing interest in an employment position, asking for a benefit, following another Service user, applying for office hours, getting a ticket to an event, completing a survey, adding information to our deal flow tools such as Pipeline, requesting professional services and more. Some community and collaboration features of the Services show all or some of your profile information when you share or interact with content or other users through the Services. You can provide information that is freely visible to other users, such as the information on your personal profile. You can also provide information that is not freely visible to other users, such as the information designated as such in the basic information section of our website (“Basic Information”). For example, you may share both your personal information that is freely visible on your personal profile and Basic Information that is not visible on your personal (or startup or company) profile when connecting to another Service user that has an application profile or office hours profile.

As another example, you share personal information such as your skills, languages spoken, location and other information when applying for a job offered by another user of the Services. You can control the visibility of your freely visible profile information, including hiding your profile from other users and telling search engines not to index your profile, using tools we provide you in the “Edit” section of your personal profile. Please note that hiding your profile will mean that your profile will no longer be visible, but your personal information will still be visible to other Service users you have given the ability to see your personal information. You will still show up in comments, groups and other environments you have joined.

Discussion Boards and Groups - You can post information on Discussion Boards or Public Groups, Private Groups and similar features in the Services that are available to some or all other users of the Services and can be indexed and visible in search engines. You should be aware that the personal information you post is available to access, copy and be used by anyone that can access it. As an example, when you post to our Public Groups or Discussion Board, which are organized around a profile, a specific technology or a specific interest, any other user of the Service can view, comment on, upvote and copy what you have posted or written. If you post or provide information on one of our Private Groups, all other users that are in such Private Group will have similar access to the information which you have posted. As set out elsewhere in the Policies, your personal information in these areas may be retained by us even if you terminate your account with us.

As an F6S user, you may be added to a group. For example, an admin of a Private Group that has invested in or supported you or your startup or company may add you to the corresponding Private Group or you may be added to a Private Group when you connect to an opportunity. You may also add yourself or be added to a Public Group because of your actions, activities and interests related to the Service.

Survey Registration Pages - You may be asked to complete a registration or survey by another Service user. For example, if you choose to complete the team registration for an event that you are attending you can provide your team members' information and technology products you use which will result in your information being shared with the Service user that corresponds to the team registration.

Sharing with third-parties

When we need to comply with applicable laws and requests - When we believe that sharing your personal information with third-party is required to comply with an applicable law, regulation or request by a government entity, to protect ourselves, our users or others from harm or illegal actions, to respond to an emergency that threatens a person, to fulfill your support requirements and/or to generally protect the security and integrity of the Service.

Our Partners - Third-parties help us deliver some parts of the Services. For example, we employ partners to collect funds owed to us in some regions, to localize the Services regionally and into new languages, and to support us in delivering the Services.

Affiliates - We may share your information with our affiliates, parents or subsidiaries. For example, we may share your personal information with our affiliate that provides professional services in order to deliver a financial service to you if required.

Service Providers - We share information with third-parties in order to provide, market, improve and support the Services, and these third-party service providers are essential to us in providing you with the Services. This includes service providers that perform services for us such as data hosting, email delivery, testing, e-document signing, analytics, support infrastructure and many other areas. The use of these services requires the relevant third-party to access or use personal information about you. We monitor these third-party service providers carefully and have policies and procedures in place to maintain the security of your information.

Payment Service Providers - We share information with third party payment services providers so that we can accept payments from you and send payments to you in relation to the Services we provide and, in some cases, in relation to services provided to you by third parties we work with. We only work with payment service providers that are appropriately authorized or licensed to provide payment services. F6S is not authorized to provide payment services and does not carry out payment services as part of the Services it provides to you. Any payments that F6S makes to you will be in fulfillment of a legal or contractual obligation of F6S to you and/or a third party and the making of such payments will not constitute the provision of payment services as set out in the UK’s Payment Services Regulations 2017 and the European Unions’ Payment Services Directive (Directive (EU) 2015/2366) as may be amended from time to time.

With your consent - We share your information with third-parties when you give us your explicit consent to share it.

From time to time, business needs might require that we share, sell, or transfer information about you in connection with a merger, bankruptcy, financing, a reorganization, acquisition of all or part of our business by another entity, winding up, sale of our assets, or similar event. This Privacy Policy will apply to your personal information that is shared with us before and after the close of any transaction or transfer to a new entity.

With regard to sharing your data with other Service users and third-parties, please note that we will comply with your requests with regard to all future access to your information but your requests will not apply to any existing off-line information held by another Service user. As an example, when you connect to a start-up program through an application profile or populate your personal profile some other Service users have the ability to access your information through functionality such as a file data download, printing as a paper version, accessing it by API and other means.

How we store your information

We collect information globally and primarily store that information in the EEA on our own servers and that of our service providers as part of providing the Services. We use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal data from unauthorized access and use. Although modern security practices are highly effective, no physical or electronic security system is entirely secure. We do however take steps to ensure that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Privacy Policy.

International transfers of information we collect

We operate globally and in doing so we transfer personal information using service platforms and service providers so that we can deliver you the Service as described in the Policies. Some of the countries where these service providers are located and where our team members work may not have privacy and data protection laws which are similar to or as protective as the laws of the EEA or the UK. In the event of the cross-border transfer by us of personal information which we collect from the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, we ensure that appropriate safeguards for the protection of such information are in place. These may include signing the EU approved Standard Contractual Clauses, binding corporate rules or any other appropriate safeguard available from time to time to ensure adequate security for transfers of your personal information. Transfer Impact Assessments or Transfer Risk Assessments are conducted before transferring personal data to third countries. Where a recipient US organization has self-certified its compliance with EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Principles, transfers will be carried out according to EU-US or UK-US Data Privacy Frameworks.

Data Retention - We apply data retention policies in line with the type of personal information retained. We retain personal information for no longer than is required in compliance with our legal obligations or for our legitimate processing purposes. After a data retention period has expired, we either delete or anonymize your personal information. The retention policies we apply to different types of personal information are:

  • Your Account Information - This personal information is retained as long as your account is active and you have not requested its deletion, and nor has it been deleted under the Policies. We may keep some of your personal information to the extent needed to be in compliance with our legal obligations, to resolve disputes and enforce any agreements we have with you;
  • Information you have shared on the Services - We retain personal information from deleted and deactivated accounts as required to allow other users of the Services to continue to make use of the Services. For example, your name will continue to appear on any messages you have sent to other users of the Services after account deletion and any posts you have made will continue to appear, where your name or other personal information has been added to the Service by you or another user other than in association with your account (such as where your name has been added as the founder of a startup or company and such record is not specifically linked to your account), on Pipeline history events and in similar locations. Please see the section below for more information about your continued rights with respect to your personal data.

Apart from what we’ve described above, we’ll archive and stop processing any personal information about you in accordance with our data retention policy when you delete your account (and we’ll continue to act in line with the other parts of the Policies) or when it’s no longer necessary or required for us to process your personal information to provide our Services, whichever comes first. The decision about what’s necessary or required to provide our Services depends upon factors such as actions you take, the type of data held by us, archive provisions, legal and regulatory requirements for data retention and the data required for our operations. By way of examples, we will delete back-ups containing your personal information within one year of first storage and web logs are deleted within six months. As another example, if we are providing you with professional services the period of data retention can be up to ten years from your last use of the Services due to legal and other regulatory requirements.

Security of your information

We take security of your data seriously and work hard to avoid loss, misuse, unauthorized access or disclosure. No security system is perfect and despite our efforts and the distributed nature of the Internet, we can’t guarantee that your personal information will be absolutely secure, either while it is being transmitted or while stored on our systems. You can find more information on our Data Security.

Processing of children’s data

F6S does not provide services for use by children, nor do we market to children. If you are under the age of 16, please do not submit any personal information through our website or our Platform. We encourage parents and legal guardians to monitor their children’s internet usage and to help enforce this Privacy Policy by instructing their children never to provide personal information via our website without their guardian’s consent.

Access and Control of your Information

You have rights with respect to your personal information which we will always work to uphold. We have compiled a list of choices below that you may make with additional information on how to make them happen.

You have the right to:

  • request access to personal information we hold about you;
  • deactivate your account;
  • update your personal information;
  • delete your personal information;
  • ask us to stop using your personal information;
  • ask us not to use your personal information to profile you or make automated decisions about you;
  • stop receiving communications from us; and
  • ask us to port your data to another service provider if technically feasible, or to provide you with a copy of personal information we hold about you in a structured, electronic format.

California Consumer Protection Act

The California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) provides F6S users who are California residents with specific rights regarding the processing of their personal information. Above sections of this Privacy Notice include the categories of consumer personal information F6S processes. Subject to allowable exceptions, you have the right to be informed about what data we hold about you, as well as enjoying the rights to request access, correction, disclosure or deletion of your personal data at any time by contacting F6S using the contact details provided at the end of this Privacy Notice. Other U.S. Privacy laws may also apply, depending on where you are resident.

F6S responds to valid requests received from individuals who wish to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws. When contacting F6S, please provide us with detailed information about the personal information you are requesting we correct, update, amend or remove.

You can accomplish most of these directly using the tools we provide to you as part of the Service. If you are unable to do so using the tools we provide, please contact our support through the help section of our website, or email us at support@f6s.com. Depending on the choices you make, it may not be possible for us to continue to provide you with the Services after we implement your choices. This may result in us closing your account or your use of the Services being limited or not possible.

Your rights are subject to any exemptions provided by law and we may in certain cases rely on our legitimate interests to process your information. Our response to your requests may be limited in some cases, such as when providing your requested information would reveal another person’s personal information or if you ask us to delete information we are permitted to retain by law or have a compelling legitimate interest to retain. You may also need to contact third-parties directly that you have asked us to share information with, as separate and independent data controllers, to have your information deleted. One example is when we are providing you with a professional service that uses third-party financial software.

We may also process information that contains your personal information for marketing purposes and you also have a right to object to our use of this information for that purpose.

If you email us directly instead of using the tools provided in the Service, we will provide you with the information within one calendar month of your request, unless doing so would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others. That would include, for example, another person’s confidentiality or intellectual property rights. We’ll tell you if we can’t meet your request for that reason.

Subject to applicable law, you have the rights above as well as the right to take any unresolved concerns to a data protection authority.

More about using our Service

Special category data - We will not collect any “Special Category Data” about you except where you provide it to us, with your explicit consent, or where it is necessary to do so to comply with the law. For these purposes that means data regarding your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data, data concerning health or data concerning your sex life or sexual orientation and offenses or alleged offenses committed by you. Other users may ask you for these details for their own purposes, for example in cases where you are engaging with them, however, F6S are not asking you for this information, nor will we use this information for our own purposes.

More about data protection - You can read more about data protection law by visiting the United Kingdom Information Commissioner's website, where you can also view our data protection notification number ZA011243.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. This may be necessary, for example, if the law changes, or if we change our business in a way that affects personal data protection. Any updated versions are posted at the top of this page and you will be deemed to have accepted the terms of the Privacy Policy on your first use of our site and platform following the alterations. We recommend that you check this page regularly to keep up-to-date.

Data Protection Contact Details

Our Data Protection Officer and data protection representatives can be contacted on email at dataprotection@f6s.com

You as the Data Subject have the right to complain at any time to a supervisory authority in relation to any issues related to our processing of your Personal Data. We would like to hear from you first if you have a complaint about how we use your data so that we may rectify the issue.

For European related matters, you can contact the Data Protection Commission:
Website: www.dataprotection.ie
Phone: +353 1 7650100 or 1800437 737
Address: Data Protection Office – 21 Fitzwilliam Square Dublin 2. D02 RD28 Ireland

For United Kingdom related matters, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office:
Website: http://www.ico.org.uk/
Phone: (+44) 0303 123 1113
Address: Head Office - Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, UK