Terms & Conditions
LAST UPDATED: MAY 2018
We, Virgin Start Up Limited, registered in England and Wales with company number 03390330, whose registered office is at Whitfield Studios, 50A Charlotte Street, London, W1T 2NS (âVirgin Start Upâ, âweâ or âusâ), would ask that you take the time to read these Terms and Conditions carefully. They explain a number of things including, for example, the rules covering your use of this site as well as other information regarding your rights.
By using www.virginstartup.org (the âsiteâ), youâll be confirming that you have read and understood and agree to these Terms and Conditions. These Terms and Conditions may change from time to time and, if they do, the up-to-date version will always be available on the site. We will indicate at the top of these Terms and Conditions when they were last updated.
Please ensure that you check these Terms and Conditions regularly to view any changes which may have been made, because by continuing to use the site after these Terms and Conditions have changed, you will be confirming that you have read and understood, and agreed to be bound by, any revised Terms and Conditions.
Your Information and Privacy
For a more detailed explanation of how we will collect, use and store information relating to you, and our commitment to protecting your privacy, please see our Privacy Policy. To learn more about how we use cookies on our site, please check out our Cookie Policy.
Registering on the site
When registering on the site please note that we will not be under any obligation to accept a loan application from you and there is no guarantee that your application will be successful. How we will treat the information you give us when registering on this site is governed by the terms of our Privacy Policy.
We may terminate your registration for any reason at any time. Upon termination, you will not be able to use the site as a registered user. You may terminate your registration by writing to us at our address below, at the end of this policy.
User Content
This site contains an opportunity for users to comment on articles and posts on the site ("User Content"). It is information in the public domain, so be aware that it may be accessed by any person using the web in any part of the world and can be found using independent search engines. So, if you choose to post information to the interactive parts of our site, we have to state that you do so at your own risk. So, we advise you to think carefully before choosing to share any information on the interactive parts of our site. For more information, please see our Privacy Policy.
In order for our open forum to work, you, the user, must bear sole responsibility for the content which you post on the site and not post anything unless you have appropriate permission and authority to do so. For example (1) if the photo is taken by someone else (e.g. a photographer), they should have given their permission for it to be uploaded to the service or (2) if a picture you want to post includes an individual, please make sure the individual has consented to you posting it on the site. In each case, you should ensure that the third party understands that the public will see it and may use that content. By posting User Content, we have to assume that you are warranting that you have the permission and authority to do so and that, if at any point you no longer have that permission and authority, you will remove the User Content. You will also indemnify us to the extent that we suffer any loss as a result of User Content posted by you on the site.
In posting User Content to the site, you grant to Virgin Start Up, an irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive, worldwide, transferable licence to publish, display, copy, modify, create derivative works from and distribute the User Content on the site. You're also granting Virgin Start Up the licence to use the User Content in any way for the purpose of publicising the site as well as the products and services of Virgin companies and also to grant sub-licences on the same basis. This licence will terminate when you remove the relevant User Content from the site.
We may keep an eye on User Content from time to time but please note that we don't have any obligation to police it. We may remove or block access to any User Content at any time. For example, we may do this where we reasonably believe that someone has broken the law, e.g. infringed a third party's intellectual property rights or breached a duty of confidentiality. We can bear no liability in respect of any loss or damage suffered as a result of any of these actions.
The following section â User Code of Conduct â gives you our common sense guidelines for how to contribute to the site in order to avoid causing harm or offence to yourself and others and to avoid having your User Content removed.
If you have any concerns about content appearing on this site, please click here to contact Virgin Start Up.
User Code of Conduct
We at Virgin Start Up are excited about users being able to communicate with each other and share ideas. However, we want all our users to be able to feel safe and at ease whilst using our site. The best way of addressing this balance is to have a user code of conduct.
By using our site you'll be agreeing to these Terms and Conditions including the Code of Conduct in this section.
The Virgin Start Up community is designed, where possible, to manage itself. Every comment left by a user can be rated and flagged by any other user. A user can positively, neutrally, or negatively rate a comment. Also, a user can flag a comment as inappropriate or offensive by clicking a link that says "flag" next to each comment. Flagged comments may be reviewed by the moderators of Virgin Start Up, who may remove those comments if they feel they are inconsistent with these Terms and Conditions.
So if we believe that a user's behaviour is likely to cause offence or harm to other users, to Virgin Start Up or any other Virgin compnay, or is otherwise unacceptable, we may issue that user with a warning. In addition, we may need to remove any content which they have shared or posted up on the site. We will try to give that user warnings through the flag and probation system outlined above but we're not obliged to give the user that notice.
To protect our users and the reputation of the site, we may keep an eye on the interaction between users from time to time but please note that we have no obligation to police it.
Virgin Start Up cannot take responsibility or liability for the conduct of any person who uses our site. In addition, Virgin Start Up is not responsible or liable for any loss or damage suffered as a result of the use of our site.
We ask that in using this site you show respect for other users and the property of others.
You agree:
to behave in a respectful way to all other users;
not to post, or otherwise make available, content which is, in our view, likely to impair others' enjoyment of this site;
not to breach the law or encourage a breach of the law;
not to post, or otherwise make available, content which is, in our view, abusive, offensive, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, or of a sexual nature, illegal, threatening, intimidating, in breach of privacy, confidentiality or third party rights, or otherwise unacceptable;
not to post, or otherwise make available, content which, in our view, portrays unacceptable violence;
not to behave in a way which is threatening, intimidating, harassing or bullying, offensive, abusive, defamatory, discriminatory or demeaning or to stalk or violate the rights of others, including individuals' privacy rights;
not to do, cause or permit anything to be done that may infringe, damage or interfere with any copyright, moral rights, performing rights, design rights, trade mark rights or other proprietary or intellectual property rights of Virgin Start Up, any other Virgin company, their respective licensors or any third party;
to only upload (i) content which is an original work created by you or (ii) content created by a third party where you have all appropriate consents and permissions from that third party to do so;
not to share any information which is confidential to any other person;
not do anything which will or might damage, interfere with, disrupt access to, overburden, interrupt or impair the functionality of the site, the materials available on the site or any software or hardware;
not to obtain or attempt to obtain unauthorised access to the site, any part of it or any private or member account areas;
not to obtain or seek to obtain personal information, confidential information or passwords from any other person;
not to circumvent or attempt to circumvent any filters we may use on this site.
not to do anything which may cause any liability for Virgin Start Up or any other Virgin company;
not to distort or misrepresent any individual or thing;
not to register as or on behalf of anyone else, impersonate anyone else, seek to take on a false identity or misrepresent yourself, your identity, or your age;
not post, or otherwise make available, content containing financial information (such as account, credit or debit card details) or information which identifies an individual personally, or is capable of identifying an individual personally (such as names, phone numbers, email addresses or postal addresses);
to respect information you obtain on our site and use it only in accordance with this User Code of Conduct and our Terms and Conditions;
not to advertise, promote or endorse any goods or services; and
not use our site to send any chain letters, junk mail, 'spamming' material or any other form of bulk communication.
The services of this website and the information contained therein may not be used for spamming, nor for commercial activities. It may not be used for illegal activities or activities deemed by the owners to be inappropriate
Minors
Protecting the online privacy of children is especially important to us. By accessing the site, making an application for a loan, or providing us with any of your personal information, youâll be representing and warranting that you are 18 or older, that you agree to these Terms and Conditions and are eligible to apply. If you are under 18 years old, please do not provide us with your name, contact details or any other information about yourself. If we reasonably believe a user to be under 18, we may need to remove their details from our site and our records.
Indemnity
Our legal eagles have said that we need to include this paragraph which basically protects Virgin Start Up against people suing us for something bad happening.
In using this site you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Virgin Start Up and all other Virgin companies, their subsidiaries and holding companies, the subsidiaries of their holding companies and each of their respective officers, directors, shareholders, employees, representatives and agents (and you shall continue to indemnify them and hold them harmless) in respect of all losses, liabilities, costs, claims, damages and demands suffered in connection with your conduct in using the site, your behaviour towards us, other Virgin companies, our and their representatives, other users, any breach of law, any breach of these Terms and Conditions or any breach of any third partyâs rights.
Proprietary Rights
All text, graphics, audio, video or image files, content, software, applications and information displayed on or available from this site, and all copyright, trade mark rights, design rights and other intellectual property rights in them (together, the âProprietary Contentâ) are the property of Virgin Start Up, Virgin Enterprises Limited, other Virgin companies, our users, partners, suppliers or licensors (as appropriate). This includes, without limitation, the Virgin brand, the organisation and lay-out of the site and the underlying software that is owned by us, other Virgin companies, our users, suppliers or licensors.
By using the site youâre agreeing that Proprietary Content is available for personal use only and that you will not copy, reproduce, publish, distribute or dispose of in any way any Proprietary Content other than through the âshareâ functions available on the site. Neither the Virgin name nor any other Virgin company name, trade mark, logo or design may be used or copied in any manner.
We will not be responsible for any losses resulting from use of any Proprietary Content.
Links to Other Sites
Our site contains links to other third party websites, resources, advertisements or sponsorships.
If you choose to access any of these links, you will be leaving the site and since we donât have any control over these third party sites, we are not responsible for the content, advertising, products or services available from them, or for any dealings or disputes that you may have in relation to those sites. Virgin Start Up is not liable for any loss or damage which may be suffered as a result of the use of such links and third party sites. We would encourage you to review the terms and conditions and privacy policy on any new site you may choose to access because our terms and conditions and privacy policy will no longer be applicable.
In particular, note that in order to apply to become a mentor, you will be leaving the site and entering https://login.geteverwise.com/ which is provided by The Virgin Foundation, operating as Virgin Unite. We recommend that you read their terms and conditions which will apply if you choose to apply as a mentor.
We reserve the right to remove a link at any time.
Pop Ups
When using the site, you may get pop-ups occasionally. We use these for many reasons to help us improve the site.
Accessibility
If you have trouble using our site with certain web browsers or other software, or if you want to let us know how we can improve accessibility, please let us know by clicking here to contact Virgin Start Up. We appreciate your feedback and your suggestions will help us to improve our service to you.
Site Information and Downtime
This site may be unavailable occasionally for maintenance, updating or otherwise. Where this happens we apologise for any inconvenience caused. However, Virgin Start Up shall not be liable for any loss, damages or inconvenience resulting from such unavailability.
We take great care in seeking to present accurate, transparent and useful information to you as a user. However, there is content on this site which is not generated by us, for example links to third party sites, as described above. Therefore, we should let you know that information on this site might be out of date, incomplete, contain some errors or be in some way unreliable. Just to be sure, please check any information obtained from this site before acting upon it in any way.
Please note that we may make changes to the site, its functions and services from time to time.
Other Limitation of Liability
It is important to note that using the internet does have its dangers. Our aim is to ensure a fast, reliable and secure service and to protect your personal information. However we cannot take responsibility for:
any breach of security of www.virginstartup.org;
any damage, loss or corruption of any data, information or material;
any viruses or other malicious programs that may infect your computer equipment or other property; and/or
any breach of security by hackers in relation to www.virginstartup.org.
Virgin Start Up and the other Virgin companies wonât be liable for any special, indirect, incidental, consequential or economic loss (or for any exemplary or punitive damages) in connection with the use of www.virginstartup.org or any other site. The same applies for the employees, officers, directors, representatives and agents of Virgin Start Up and/or the other Virgin companies. This paragraph only applies to the extent that it can in accordance with applicable laws.
Law and Jurisdiction
These Terms and Conditions and any dispute in relation to them, are governed by English law and we reserve the right to bring proceedings in the courts in any location, the English courts or whichever forum we feel is appropriate.
As a user, the laws of your location may apply to your online dealings with the site and you may have additional legal rights and/or obligations than those provided under English law. We always recommend that you should seek local legal advice, however we would encourage you to speak to us if you have any concerns to see if they can be resolved.
Other terms â a final word from our lawyers
These Terms and Conditions and the Privacy Policy constitute the entire agreement between you, the user, and Virgin Start Up in relation to your use of the site (which includes details on our approach to cookies) and supersede all prior agreements and arrangements between us in relation to your use of the site.
If any provision or part of these Terms and Conditions is or becomes illegal, invalid or unenforceable, the legality, validity and enforceability of all of the other provisions and parts of these Terms and Conditions will not be impaired.
No failure or delay by Virgin Start Up in exercising or enforcing any right, power or remedy which arises under these Terms and Conditions shall operate as a waiver of that or any other right, power or remedy. No waiver by Virgin Start Up shall be effective unless in writing and signed by an authorised representative of Virgin Start Up.
Finally â if in doubt, talk to us
If you have any queries, comments or complaints regarding the site or these Terms and Conditions, just get in touch. You can click here to contact us.
If you have any queries, comments or complaints regarding the websites of any other Virgin companies or the products or services you receive from them, then please contact them directly.