Privacy Policy

Welcome to Lynx. Lynx ("we," "our," or "us") operates a professional networking platform at lynx.community designed to connect Vanderbilt University students, alumni, and venture capitalists around early-stage startup ideas. This Privacy Policy explains what personal data we collect, why we collect it, how we use and share it, and the choices you have regarding your information.

By creating an account or otherwise using the Lynx platform, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with our practices, please do not use the platform. We encourage you to review this policy periodically, as we may update it to reflect changes in our practices or applicable law. We will notify registered users of material changes via email or an in-app notice before they take effect.

Lynx is operated by its founding team and is currently in an early stage of growth, serving the Vanderbilt University community. This policy applies to all data we process in connection with your use of our website, web application, and any related services (collectively, the "Service"). It does not apply to third-party websites or services linked from the platform.

We collect data that you provide directly, data generated by your use of the platform, and technical data collected automatically. The categories below describe what we collect and why.

Account Data

When you register for Lynx, we collect your name, email address, account type (student or venture capitalist), and the authentication credentials managed by our identity provider, Clerk. If you register via OAuth (e.g., Google), we receive the profile fields your OAuth provider shares with us. Your Clerk user ID is stored alongside your account record as a stable identifier.

Profile Data

After creating an account you may complete an onboarding flow and build a profile. Profile data you choose to provide includes: a short bio, skills, academic major, expected graduation year (students), company name, firm name, and investment focus (VCs), industry, availability for new projects, whether you identify as a technical founder, and optional links to your LinkedIn profile, GitHub account, and personal website. You may also upload a profile photo and banner image, which are stored as files in our Convex backend. All profile fields are voluntary — you control what you share.

User-Generated Content

Lynx lets you post startup ideas (title, description, industry) and create project listings (name, description, stage, open roles, GitHub URL, live demo URL, waitlist URL). You may also express interest in ideas posted by others and send and receive direct messages. The content of these ideas, projects, roles, and messages is stored in our database and constitutes user-generated content associated with your account.

Activity Data

We record in-platform activity necessary to operate the Service: which ideas you have expressed interest in, which projects you have joined and in what role, daily reach-out counts (to enforce rate limits and surface engagement analytics to idea owners), conversation metadata such as the last message timestamp and unread status, and waitlist signup counts on project listings.

Technical and Device Data

Our hosting provider, Vercel, automatically collects standard web server logs including your IP address, browser type, operating system, referring URL, and pages visited along with timestamps. This data is used for security, abuse prevention, performance monitoring, and aggregate analytics. We do not currently use third-party analytics scripts or advertising trackers on Lynx.

Authentication Data

Clerk, our authentication provider, manages session cookies, JSON Web Tokens (JWTs), and any OAuth tokens required to verify your identity. Clerk stores hashed credentials and session metadata on your behalf; we store only the Clerk user ID and do not have access to your raw passwords. For more information about how Clerk handles your authentication data, please review Clerk's Privacy Policy.

We use the data we collect solely to provide, maintain, and improve the Lynx platform and to communicate with you. The specific purposes are described below.

Connecting Founders and Investors

The core purpose of Lynx is to facilitate connections between people who have startup ideas and the collaborators or investors who can help them succeed. To this end, we display your public profile information — name, bio, skills, account type, and any optional links — to other authenticated users of the platform. Similarly, we make your publicly posted ideas and project listings visible to the community. When you express interest in an idea, we notify the idea owner, enabling them to follow up with you. This disclosure of profile and content data is the fundamental service Lynx provides, and by posting content or expressing interest you are directing us to share that data as described.

Operating Platform Features

We use your data to operate all features of the platform: authenticating you when you log in, populating your dashboard and feed, delivering direct messages between members, managing project memberships and open roles, enforcing daily reach-out limits, and displaying waitlist counts. Activity data helps us surface relevant content (e.g., ideas in industries you follow) and show idea owners aggregate engagement statistics about their posts.

Safety and Integrity

We use account, activity, and technical data to detect and prevent fraud, spam, abuse, and violations of our Professional Community Policy. This includes identifying accounts that behave in coordinated inauthentic ways, investigating reports of harassment or harmful content, and taking action including account suspension where warranted. Safety processing is necessary for the legitimate interests of maintaining a trustworthy community.

Communications

We may use your email address to send you transactional messages required to operate the Service (e.g., email verification, password reset, critical security notices) and, with your consent, periodic product updates or community announcements. You can opt out of non-transactional emails at any time by clicking "unsubscribe" in any such message or contacting us at privacy@lynx.community.

We do not sell your personal data to third parties. We do not share your personal data with advertisers. The following describes the limited circumstances under which data is shared.

Other Users, as Designed

Information you add to your profile and content you post on Lynx is visible to other authenticated members of the platform. This is the designed and expected behavior of a professional networking service — your name, bio, skills, ideas, and project listings are the currency of collaboration. Direct messages are visible only to the two parties in a conversation. You control how much you share by choosing which profile fields to complete and which ideas or projects to post. We do not currently offer granular per-field visibility controls beyond the distinction between authenticated-user-only and public access; all profile content is visible to any logged-in Lynx member.

Service Providers

We share your data with a small number of third-party service providers who process data on our behalf under contractual obligations of confidentiality and data protection:

• Clerk — handles authentication, session management, and identity verification. Clerk processes your email, name, and authentication credentials to verify your identity each time you log in.
• Convex — provides our real-time database and file storage. All user-generated content, profile data, ideas, projects, messages, and uploaded media are stored in Convex's infrastructure.
• Vercel — hosts and serves the Lynx web application. Vercel processes server request logs including IP addresses and browser metadata as part of normal CDN and hosting operations.

We do not authorize these providers to use your data for their own marketing or product improvement purposes beyond what is described in their respective data processing agreements with us.

Legal Requirements

We may disclose your information if we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to comply with a law, regulation, or valid legal process (such as a subpoena or court order); to protect the rights, property, or safety of Lynx, our users, or the public; or to detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security, or technical issues. Where permitted by law, we will notify you before disclosing your data in response to a legal demand.

Business Transfers

If Lynx undergoes a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, bankruptcy, or sale of all or a portion of our assets, your data may be transferred to the successor entity as part of that transaction. We will notify you via email or a prominent in-app notice of any such change and the choices you have regarding your data before the transfer becomes effective.

We retain your personal data for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you with the Service. While your account remains open, we store all data associated with it — including your profile, posted ideas, project listings, messages, and activity records — because this data is necessary to deliver the features of Lynx.

When you delete your account, we initiate a deletion process that removes your profile information, posted content, and conversation history from our active database within 30 days. Your Clerk authentication record is also deleted, which permanently revokes your ability to log in with your previous credentials. Uploaded media files (profile photo, banner image) are removed from Convex storage as part of the same process.

Certain data may persist after account deletion for a limited period in backup snapshots, as required by applicable law, or where deletion would impair another user's legitimate rights. For example, if you were a member of a project team, the project listing itself — which belongs to the project owner — will continue to exist but your name will be replaced with an anonymized placeholder. Aggregate analytics derived from your activity (e.g., total interest counts on an idea you engaged with) are not personally identifiable and may be retained indefinitely.

Server logs processed by Vercel are retained according to Vercel's standard log retention policy, which you can review in Vercel's Privacy Policy.

You have meaningful control over the personal data you share on Lynx and how it is used. The following describes the choices available to you.

Profile Information

You can edit or remove most profile fields at any time through your account settings. Fields you clear will no longer be visible to other users. Your name and email address are required fields for account operation and cannot be removed without deleting your account, though you may update them.

Content You Post

You may edit or delete ideas and project listings you have created at any time. Deleting a posted idea removes it from the platform and disassociates any interest records linked to it. Deleting a project listing removes it along with any open roles you had posted; members who had joined the project will be notified that the project is no longer active.

Account Deletion

You may permanently delete your Lynx account through your account settings page. Account deletion is irreversible. Upon deletion, your profile, posted content, and personal data will be removed from our active systems within 30 days as described in Section 5. If you have difficulty locating the account deletion option, please contact us at privacy@lynx.community and we will process the deletion manually within 7 business days of receiving your verified request.

Data Export Requests

You may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you by emailing privacy@lynx.community with the subject line "Data Export Request." We will provide a machine-readable export (JSON format) of your profile, posted content, and activity data within 30 days of receiving a verified request. We may ask you to verify your identity before processing the request.

Email Communications

You may opt out of non-transactional email communications (such as product announcements or community updates) by clicking "unsubscribe" in any such email. You cannot opt out of transactional emails necessary for the operation of your account, such as security alerts, email address verification, or password reset messages.

We take the security of your personal data seriously and implement technical and organizational measures designed to protect it from unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction.

All data stored in our Convex backend, including your profile information, messages, ideas, and project data, is encrypted at rest using industry-standard encryption. Data in transit between your browser and our servers is protected by HTTPS/TLS. Convex also enforces row-level security rules so that database queries can only access data they are explicitly authorized to retrieve — your private messages, for example, cannot be read by other users even if they attempt to query for them directly.

Your authentication is managed by Clerk, which employs secure session handling, short-lived JWTs, and industry-standard practices for credential storage (passwords are never stored in plaintext). Clerk supports multi-factor authentication, which we strongly encourage you to enable. Session tokens are stored in secure, HTTP-only cookies to reduce exposure to cross-site scripting attacks.

Despite our efforts, no security measure is perfect or impenetrable. We cannot guarantee the security of your data under all circumstances. If you become aware of any security vulnerability or suspect your account has been compromised, please contact us immediately at privacy@lynx.community.

Lynx is a professional networking platform intended for use by university students, alumni, and professional investors. All users must be at least 18 years of age to create an account. By registering for Lynx, you represent that you are 18 years of age or older. We do not knowingly collect personal data from individuals under the age of 18.

Lynx is not designed for, directed at, or intended to attract children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 in violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) or equivalent applicable laws. If we learn that we have inadvertently collected personal data from a child under 13, we will delete that information as promptly as possible.

If you are a parent or guardian and believe that your child under the age of 18 has provided personal data to Lynx, please contact us at privacy@lynx.community and we will take steps to remove that information and terminate the account.