Privacy Policy

Who we are

Synapses Ventures, 585 Glenwood Ave, Menlo Park, CA 94025, United States. This policy covers synapsesventures.com and the tools reached from it — the Startup Academy, entrepreneurship certification, Pitch Room, workforce dashboard, and the name-voting page.

Questions or requests about your information: info@synapsesventures.com.

What we collect

• Account and sign-in. If you sign in with Google, Google shares your name, email address and profile photo with us, and you approve that on Google's own screen. If you create an email and password account, we store your email and a hashed password. We also record which role your account holds — member, partner, worker or admin — so the right tools open for you.
• Messages and inquiries. Contact form entries (name, email, company, subject, message), venture submissions, investment inquiries (name, email, organization, phone, investor type, typical ticket size, areas of interest, message, and confirmation that you agreed to be contacted), and newsletter sign-ups (email only).
• Learning and certification. Courses you enrol in, lesson and quiz progress, your workbook notes, exam attempts (questions, answers, score and timing), certificates issued in your name, and any appeal you file.
• Exam integrity. The certification exam records in-exam browser events — such as switching away from the exam window or a copy attempt — with a severity, a short detail and a timestamp, and logs when an administrator exports an integrity report. This keeps the certificate meaningful and lets you appeal if a flag was wrong.
• Pitch Room. Pitches submitted and any decks uploaded, partner reviews and earlier versions of those reviews, and an audit log of who opened, unlocked, edited or exported what, with timestamps.
• Workforce and tax. For workers and contractors: your worker record, timesheets, W-9 or equivalent tax forms and their revisions, and an access log for those documents.
• Name voting. The display name you type, your three picks, any name ideas you add, the date and time, and a one-way hashed record of the network address your vote came from so one connection cannot vote twice. We store the hash, not the address.
• Files you upload. Pitch decks, tax documents and blog images are kept in private storage that visitors cannot list or open by guessing a link.
• Usage data. We use Google Analytics, which sets cookies and tells us which pages were visited, roughly from where, and on what kind of device.

How we use it

• Reply to your inquiry and evaluate a venture or investment.
• Run your account and open the tools your role allows.
• Track your progress and issue certificates.
• Run the certification exam and keep its results trustworthy.
• Operate the Pitch Room and tell you when a review or notification arrives.
• Process worker payments and tax paperwork.
• Tally votes and name ideas for a naming poll.
• Understand which pages and programs people actually use.

What we don't do

• We do not sell your personal information.
• We do not use your information for advertising, and we do not share it with advertisers.
• We share information only with the providers that host this site and its database, run Google Analytics, and provide Google sign-in — and only as much as those services need.
• We may disclose information where we are legally required to.

Cookies and browser storage

Google Analytics sets cookies to count visits and show which pages are read. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, and Google publishes a browser add-on to opt out of Analytics. Blocking cookies can stop sign-in and some tools from working.

We also keep small items in your browser's local storage so the site can remember things such as whether you already voted and the name you voted under, and your layout preferences. Clearing the site's data in your browser removes them.

How long we keep it

• Inquiries, submissions and newsletter sign-ups: until you ask us to remove them.
• Course, exam and certificate records: while a certificate you earned stays verifiable, so an employer or partner can confirm it.
• Pitch Room audit logs, review versions and notifications: for the periods set in the Pitch Room retention settings, then purged.
• W-9 and other tax records: as long as tax and payment rules require.
• Votes: until the poll closes. The hashed network record is kept only to prevent duplicate votes.
• Exam integrity events: alongside the attempt, so a result can be reviewed or appealed.

How we protect it

Access is limited to the people who need it. Uploaded documents sit in private storage, votes keep only a hashed network address, and sensitive actions in the Pitch Room, exam integrity and tax workflows are logged. No system is perfect — if you spot a problem, tell us and we will look.

Your choices

• See, correct or delete your information: email info@synapsesventures.com. We may ask you to confirm it is your account, and we aim to reply within 30 days. Some records stay because a certificate must remain verifiable or because tax rules require them.
• Stop hearing from us: use the unsubscribe link in any email, or email us.
• Close your account: email us and we remove your profile and app data, except records we must retain.
• Voting: a vote is final once submitted. Email us if you need it removed.

Where we operate

Synapses Ventures is based in the United States and our systems are hosted there. If you use this site from elsewhere, your information is processed in the United States.

Children

This site is not aimed at children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect their information.

Changes to this policy

When we make a material change we update the effective date at the top of this page. Using the site after an update means the updated policy applies.

Contact

Synapses Ventures, 585 Glenwood Ave, Menlo Park, CA 94025, United States. Email: info@synapsesventures.com.