Privacy policy

Who we are

Arete (“we”) helps students at Imperial, UCL, LSE, King’s, LBS and Queen Mary find co-founders, and lets startups we invite find students. We decide how your data is used, so we are its controller under UK data protection law (UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018). Contact us about anything here at hello@aretefounders.com.

What we collect

• Your account: your university email (or, for startups, the email we invited) and when you signed in.
• Sign-in security: the email and IP address of each sign-in request, kept for 24 hours to stop abuse.
• Your profile: name, photo, LinkedIn URL, course, faculty, year, university (from your email), bio and anything else you add.
• Your quiz answers: how you work, personality and working-style scores, what you want to build, time you can give, and your views on ambition, funding and equity.
• What you do on Arete: posts, who you mark as interesting, connection requests and whether you accept them, and reports you make.
• Startups: company name, website and the brief you fill in about the role.

Who can see it

• Other students see your public profile: name, photo, university, course, archetype, product/business split, skills and what you're looking for.
• Private quiz answers (personality scores, working style, ambition, funding and equity views, free-text answers) are used only for matching. Nobody else sees them unless you choose to share your colours.
• Your email and LinkedIn are shown to someone only after you accept their connection request.
• Invited startups see the public profile of students who turned on “Open to startup roles” and were recommended to them. They get your contact details only if you accept their request.

Why we use it, and our legal basis

• To run Arete for you (your account, profile, matches and connections): necessary to provide the service you signed up for.
• To match you using your quiz answers: your consent, which you give before the quiz. You can withdraw it by deleting your account.
• To keep Arete safe (sign-in limits, reports, stopping misuse): our legitimate interest in a secure service.
• To email you sign-in links, startup requests (if you opted in) and one email when matching opens.

We don't sell your data, show ads or use your data to train AI models.

Who processes it for us

• Supabase: database, sign-in and photo storage, hosted in London.
• Vercel: runs the website.
• Resend: sends our emails.

Some of these companies may process data outside the UK. Where they do, they protect it with the safeguards UK law requires, such as the UK International Data Transfer Addendum.

Cookies

We use only the cookies needed to keep you signed in. Your light or dark theme choice is saved in your browser. No analytics or advertising cookies.

How long we keep it

Until you delete your account. Deleting it (from My profile, or the quiz page) removes your profile, quiz answers, posts, connections and photo straight away. Copies may stay in encrypted backups for a short time before they are overwritten. Sign-in records are deleted after 24 hours.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of your data, ask us to correct or delete it, object to how we use it, or ask for it in a portable format. Email hello@aretefounders.com. We'll reply within a month. If you're unhappy with our answer, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Changes

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll tell you by email or on Arete before it applies.