Terms of Use
Varsity Ventures Ltd is registered in Northern Ireland with company number NI679551 and our registered office Unit 143 North City Business Centre, 2 Duncairn Gardens, Belfast, Northern Ireland, BT15 2GG.

Who is Startium?
We trade under the brand name of ‘Startium’ throughout these the Terms, but at all times are making representations and commitments as the legal entity Varsity Ventures Ltd (in full compliance with the Companies (Trading Disclosure) Regulations 2008).

Startium develops and distributes a suite of software products and digital tools that help universities, colleges and business support organisations; engage, empower and equip their entrepreneurial communities.

Our suite of software products and digital tools (collectively “the Startium Service” or “the Service”) consists of the startium.co.uk website (“the Site”), the software applications hosted or made available by us and any other related content and materials, however you access them, whether via the Site or via computer/laptop, mobile or tablet.

These terms of use, together with the Privacy Policy and any other policies referred to in them (collectively, “the Terms”), apply to your use of the Service. Please read them carefully because when you submit your details and agree to sign-up, in doing so you are agreeing to these terms and they become legally binding.

If you are using the Service because your organisation has given you administrative access, please note that we will have an agreement with your organisation which also applies to your use of the Service. This does not mean you may ignore these Terms – they still apply to you and govern your conduct as you interact with the Startium Service.

These Terms will change over time, and we will promptly post the modified Terms on our website. When you use the Startium Service after a modification is posted, you are telling us that you accept the modified terms.

If you or your associated Platform Partner has a written agreement with Varsity Ventures Ltd that states that it supersedes these Terms of Use (for example if you are a university or other Platform Partner which requires special terms of use), then to the extent there is any conflict between the documents, the provisions in your separate agreement (or separate terms of use) will apply.

We respect the data security and privacy rights of all our users and Platform Partners. Any personal information that you provide to us will be dealt with in line with our privacy policy, which explains what personal information we collect, how and why we collect, store, use and share such information, your rights in relation to your personal information and how to contact us in the event you have a query or complaint about the use of your personal information.

For more information on our privacy practices, please read our Privacy Policy.

Access to the Service
You need to have an account to use the Service. When you sign up to the Service, you will do so only because one of our Platform Partners has invited you to and you will become a ‘User’. For the full duration of your time as a User of the Service, you will be associated with a Platform Partner such as a university, college or business support organisation, unless you have been given log in credentials by Startium to audit, pilot or test the platform.

Platform Partners use the Service to manage their internal and external functions, such as scheduling appointments with users, making introductions to mentors, promoting opportunities and events, and measuring the impact of their services. When Platform Partners signup for the Service, they may send us personal information about their Users for the express purposes of our being able to provide the Startium Service.

Either we at Startium or the Platform Partner which you are associated with will send you an email with information about how to enable your User account. After you do so, and we confirm your association with the Platform Partner, we may pre-populate some areas of your profile with information provided by your associated Platform Partner. We encourage you to review this information for accuracy and completeness and ensure your profile is kept up to date so you can receive the most relevant recommendations for opportunities, events and business support services.

By creating a User Account, you certify that all information you provide in the registration is accurate. You must have a valid email address registered with us at all times. If an email that we send to you should bounce for some reason, your User Account may be temporarily suspended until you contact us with a verifiable address.

By creating a User Account you also consent to receive regular communications from us regarding the Service. These communications will include important notifications, updates and information regarding the Site or the Service. If you do not want to receive communications regarding the Service, you must cease to use the Service and ask us to delete your account. You can request this by emailing chris.shannon@startium.co.uk

User Association
Nearly all of our Users are individuals who have been invited to sign-up to and use one or more of our software products or digital tools by an organisation (Platform Partner) that has signed up to use the Service.

For example, you might be:

• a student at a university or higher education provider interested in entrepreneurship; or
• a business owner or tenant based at a business centre or university incubator; or
• Alumni of a college or university that is supporting you on your start-up journey; or
• an early career researcher exploring commercialisation opportunities.

A list of current participating platform partners for you to select from, is provided as part of the sign-up process.

User records and personal data
Upon registration, you can add information about you and your venture to your user profile. Because we are being asked by your associated Platform Partner to give you access to our Service, we act as a ‘data processor’ for any personal data about you provided by you or your associated Platform Partner (who is responsible as ‘data controller’).

If you are no longer associated with your Platform Partner (you may no longer be a tenant, or have moved to a new university), your Platform Partner will tell us when you have stopped working being associated. We will confirm to you that your account is about to be deactivated, you will have 10 working days to inform us if you wish to move your account to a new Platform Partner or your account, and the data within it, will be automatically deleted and you will no longer be able to access your records.

Your associated Platform Partner should set out how it will continue to hold and use information about you that was gathered by using our Service and this should be set out in their policies, including their privacy policy. We process information about you in accordance with our Privacy Policy. By using the Service, you consent to such processing and you warrant that all data provided by you is accurate and up to date.

Links to and from our Service
The Service may contain links to other sites and resources which we do not control. We are not responsible for and have not checked or approved their content or their privacy policies (if any). We do not recommend and have no control over the contents of those sites or resources and accept no responsibility for them or for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them.

Internet transmissions are never completely private or secure and any message or information you send using our software products and digital tools may be read or intercepted by others, even if the transmission is encrypted. You must not misuse the Service by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful.

Support
If you have any queries or you are experiencing any issues with the Service, you can email our Director at chris@varsityventures.co. If we need to contact you, we will do so by email, using the contact details you have provided to us.

Information, not advice
Contributions, articles, commentary, charts, data visualisations and other materials posted within our Service are provided for general information only. Content within the Service is not, and should not be construed as, financial or other professional advice. You should not rely on the content within our Service as the basis for making a financial decision. If in doubt, you should seek professional advice. We therefore disclaim all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on such materials by any user of our Service, or by anyone who may be informed of any of its contents.

The Service includes the use of our software products, customer services and digital tools as well as the content in the Service made available by Startium. If a third party is using the Service to perform functions or provide you with advice (for example, a relevant professional or Business Advisor giving you business advice), then that advice is a separate service provided by the relevant professional or Business Advisor and is not a part of the Service. Varsity Ventures Ltd has no responsibility for and is not liable for any advice or service provided by your Business Advisor or other third party.

Intellectual property rights
The Content You Submit Belongs to You

Varsity Ventures Ltd does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service. Both you and your associated Platform Partner will upload information about you to the Service. Personal data about you and information about your business that is uploaded by you or your associated Platform Partner is all owned by you and will remain yours.

You are responsible for the content and information you upload to our software products and digital tools. You take full responsibility for any loss or damage caused to us in respect of information and materials you upload to our software products and digital tools. We reserve the right to disclose your identity to any third party who is claiming that content uploaded by you to the Service violates their intellectual property rights or of their right to privacy.

You also represent and warrant that the content you upload to the Service and the use and provision of that content on the Service will not: (a) infringe a third party’s patent, copyright, trade mark, trade secret, moral rights or other intellectual property rights, or rights of publicity or privacy; (b) violate, or encourage any conduct that would violate, any applicable law or regulation or would give rise to civil liability; (c) be fraudulent, false, misleading or deceptive; (d) be defamatory, obscene, pornographic, vulgar or offensive; (e) promote discrimination, bigotry, racism, hatred, harassment or harm against any individual or group; (f) be violent or threatening or promote violence or actions that are threatening to any person or entity; or (g) promote illegal or harmful activities or substances.

We respect other people’s rights and expect you to do the same. If you repeatedly infringe other people’s intellectual property rights, we will disable your account when appropriate.

Our Intellectual Property Belongs to Us
Content produced and shared by Varsity Ventures Ltd (Startium) is protected by copyright, trade mark, patent, trade secret and other laws, and, we own and retain all rights to the this content, the underlying concepts and ideas behind the Service and the Service itself (including for the avoidance of doubt all patents, utility models, rights to inventions, copyright and related rights, moral rights, trade marks and service marks, business names and domain names, rights in get-up and trade dress, goodwill and the right to sue for passing off or unfair competition, rights in designs, rights in computer software, database rights, rights to use, and protect the confidentiality of, confidential information (including know-how and trade secrets) and all other intellectual property rights, in each case whether registered or unregistered and including all applications and rights to apply for and be granted, renewals or extensions of, and rights to claim priority from, such rights and all similar or equivalent rights or forms of protection which subsist or will subsist now or in the future in any part of the worldbranding, logos, goodwill, source code and computer programmes).

You will not remove, alter or conceal any copyright, trademark, service mark or other proprietary rights notices incorporated in or accompanying our software products and digital tools and you will not reproduce, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works based on, perform, display, publish, distribute, transmit, broadcast, sell, license or otherwise exploit our Content.

The Startium name and logo are our trademarks, and may not be copied, manipulated, imitated, or used, in whole or in part, without our prior written permission. In addition, all page headers, custom graphics, button icons and scripts are service marks, trademarks and/or trade dress of Varsity Ventures Ltd and Startium, and may not be copied, imitated, or used, in whole or in part, without prior written permission.

We own (or are authorised to use) all rights in the Service. We are granting you a licence to use some of those rights as set out in these terms.

Prohibited uses
You may use the Service only for lawful purposes. You may not use the Service:

• in any way that breaches any applicable local, national or international law or regulation;
• in any way that is unlawful or fraudulent, or has any unlawful or fraudulent purpose or effect;
• for the purpose of disrespecting, offending, harming or attempting to harm any person in any way;
• to send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use or re-use any material which is defamatory, contains any material which is obscene, offensive, hateful or inflammatory, promotes sexually explicit material, promotes violence, or promotes discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age;
• to send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use or re-use any material which infringes any copyright, database right or trade mark of any other person;
• to send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use or re-use any material which is likely to deceive any person, be made in breach of any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence, promote any illegal activity, be threatening, abuse or invade another’s privacy, or cause annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety, be likely to harass, upset, embarrass, alarm or annoy any other person, be used to impersonate any person, or to misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person, gives the impression that it emanates from us, advocates, promotes or assists any unlawful act such as (by way of example only) copyright infringement or computer misuse;
• to transmit, or procure the sending of, any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising or promotional material or any other form of similar solicitation (spam).

You also agree:

• not to reproduce, duplicate, copy or re-sell any part of the Service;
• not to access without authority, interfere with, damage or disrupt:
  1. any part of the Service;
  2. any equipment or network on which the Service is stored;
  3. any software used in the provision of the Service; or
  4. any equipment or network or software owned or used by any third party;
• not to reverse engineer or reverse compile any of the technology used to provide you with the Service, including but not limited to, any applications associated with the Service;
• not to do or say anything that would bring the Service or Varsity Ventures Ltd (Startium) into disrepute.

Changes to the Service
We will undoubtedly issue updates to improve the performance and functionality of our software products and digital tools. You can choose not to install these, but if you do not, you may not be able to continue using the Service, or it may not work as well as it should.

Availability of the Service
It is our intention that the Service will work as required and is available at all times for you to use, but we cannot guarantee it. We will look to fix any errors we discover as soon as we reasonably can, and will sometimes need to suspend all or parts of the Service to make these fixes. We will always work to minimise disruption to you and to give you reasonable notice of any planned suspension.

Limitation of Liability
You assume sole responsibility for results obtained from the use of the Service, and for conclusions drawn from such use. We shall have no liability for any damage caused by errors or omissions in any information, instructions or scripts provided to us by you or by Third Party providers in connection with the Service.

If your information is lost or corrupted because of our error, then, other than as we set out below, our responsibility to you will be limited to the recurring annual sum paid by the User for the use of the Service. Nothing in these Terms limit or exclude our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation or any other liability we cannot legally limit.

Other than as we set out above, we are not responsible for other types of loss or damage.

Indemnification
You agree to indemnify us against any and all claims, losses, damages, expenses and costs (including legal fees and expenses) arising out of or in connection with your use of the Service in breach of these Terms, or infringement of third-party rights, except to the extent that we have breached these Terms or been negligent.

Breach and Enforcement of These Terms
We reserve the right to refuse access to the Service to anyone for any reason at any time. We reserve the right to delete any user or account for any legitimate business reason. We may, but have no obligation to, remove, edit, block, and/or monitor content or accounts containing content that we determine in our sole discretion violates these Terms of Service.

General Terms
These Terms comprise the entire agreement between you and us for the provision of the Service and supersede all prior or contemporaneous negotiations, discussions, representations or agreements, whether written or oral. No undertakings, promises, representations, or warranties shall have any legal effect unless expressly set out in these Terms.

If any provision of these Terms is held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or unenforceable, the other provisions shall remain in force. The invalid or unenforceable provision shall apply with whatever modification is necessary to give effect to the commercial intention of the parties.

Nothing in these Terms shall give rise to any joint venture, partnership, or employment relationship between you and us.

No failure or delay by a party to exercise any right or remedy provided under these Terms or by law shall constitute a waiver of that or any other right or remedy, nor shall it prevent or restrict the further exercise of that or any other right or remedy.

Jurisdiction and applicable law
These Terms and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them or their subject matter or formation (including non-contractual disputes or claims) shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the law of England and Wales. Any disputes to be dealt with under these Terms shall be conducted through the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts (whereby proceedings may be commenced in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also, but have carriage under English law).