Privacy Notice
Last updated: September 28, 2026
This notice explains what personal information Hermesa collects, why we collect it, and what we do with it. We have tried to keep it clear and short. If anything here is unclear, please ask us.
Who we are
Hermesa is a trading name of Hermesa Limited, a company registered in England and Wales with company number 12822899. Our registered office is 6 Caranday Villas, Norland Road London W11 4QN, United Kingdom.
We are the data controller for the information described in this notice. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under reference ZB231107.
You can contact us about anything in this notice at hello@hermesa.co.uk.
If you ask us for the Angel Starter Pack or a case study
What we collect
Your first name, last name and email address.
Why
To send you what you asked for, and to understand how many people who read our material go on to join us. We use your details for nothing else and we do not pass them to anyone else. We will send you a few follow up emails. You can unsubscribe from these emails at any time.
Our lawful basis
Our legitimate interests, specifically responding to a request you have made and understanding whether the material we produce is useful.
If you enquire about becoming a member
What we collect
Your name, email address, LinkedIn profile, how much investing experience you have, how you heard about us, and anything else you choose to tell us. If you book a call with us we will also hold the time of that call and any notes we make about our conversation.
Why
To consider your enquiry, to confirm you are a real person, to arrange and prepare for a conversation with you, and to understand which routes bring people to Hermesa so that we can focus our efforts.
Our lawful basis
Our legitimate interests, specifically assessing whether someone is a good fit for our community, protecting the community from fraudulent or bad faith applications, and running our organisation efficiently.
If you are a Hermesa member
What we collect
Your contact details, your professional background and sector expertise, your investor self-certification, records of the deals you have looked at and invested in, your participation in screening and diligence, and our correspondence with you.
Why
To run the community, to match deals to the right sector experts, to administer investments, and to meet our legal and tax obligations.
Our lawful basis
Performance of our agreement with you, our legitimate interests in operating the community, and, for records connected to investments, our legal obligations.
Questions about your background
We ask members about their ethnic background. These questions are optional and you can answer "prefer not to say". We use the answers to understand how representative our community is, to see whether we are reaching angel investors from all backgrounds, and to report figures publicly and to funders. Anything we publish or report is aggregated, and we do not report numbers small enough to identify anyone. The answers play no part in any decision we make about you.
Information about ethnicity is special category data. We process it under the equality of opportunity or treatment condition in Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018, and we have an appropriate policy document in place covering how we handle it. If you would rather we did not process your information for this purpose, write to us at [privacy@hermesa.co.uk] and we will stop.
If you apply to us for investment
This section matters most to founders, so we have written it plainly.
What we collect
The names and contact details of you and your co-founders, the split of founder equity, where your company is based, details of your company and its market, your existing investors, your fundraising stage and target, your pitch deck and any links you give us, and everything else on the application form.
Why we ask about your founding team
Hermesa invests only in companies with at least one woman co-founder holding a meaningful share of founder equity. The questions about who founded your company and how the equity is split are how we apply that criterion, so they form part of the assessment rather than background information. We also use the answers, in aggregate and without identifying anyone, to report on the companies that apply to us.
Why we collect the rest
To assess your company. Our screening process depends on sector experts from within our community, so your application and your deck will be shared in confidence with Hermesa members and with sector experts asked to review it. We will not share it more widely, for example with other investors or funds, without asking you first.
Our lawful basis
Our legitimate interests, specifically applying our published investment criteria, obtaining expert review of opportunities, and maintaining a record of the companies we have seen.
Questions about the ethnicity of your founding team
At the end of the application we ask about the ethnic background of each founder. These questions are optional, you can answer "prefer not to say", and the answers play no part in our decision. We keep them separate from the assessment itself.
We use them to understand who applies to us, to see whether our process is reaching founders from all backgrounds, and to report figures publicly and to funders. Anything we publish or report is aggregated, and we do not report numbers small enough to identify anyone.
Information about ethnicity is special category data. We process it under the equality of opportunity or treatment condition in Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018, and we have an appropriate policy document in place covering how we handle it. If you would rather we did not process your information for this purpose, write to us at [privacy@hermesa.co.uk] and we will stop.
If you come to one of our events
We collect your name, email address, the organisation you are with, and any accessibility requirements you tell us about. We use this to run the event and to keep you informed about it. Where an event is held in someone else's building, we may have to give them a list of attendee names for security. Accessibility information is used only with your explicit consent and only to support you at the event.
Photographs of our community
We use photographs of our members on this website to show what the community is actually like. We do not publish names alongside them.
Our lawful basis is our legitimate interests in representing our community honestly. We tell members in advance which photographs we intend to use and give them the chance to object before publication. If you would rather we did not use a photograph of you, at any time and for any reason, email us at [privacy@hermesa.co.uk] and we will remove it. You do not need to give a reason.
Testimonials
Where we publish a quote from a member or a founder, we do so with their name, role and photograph, and only with their consent. Anyone who has given a testimonial can withdraw it at any time by contacting us, and we will take it off the site.
Cookies and site analytics
We use a small number of cookies to make this site work, and, if you agree to it, to understand how people use it. We do not use advertising cookies. Our cookie policy explains what we use and how to change your choices.
Who we share information with
We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for anyone else's marketing. We share it with:
Hermesa members and sector experts, where a company has applied to us for investment, in confidence and for the purpose of screening and diligence.
Suppliers who provide the systems we run on, including our website platform, our forms, our customer relationship system, our email and file storage, and our calendar booking tool. They act on our instructions and cannot use your information for their own purposes.
Our professional advisers, where we need advice.
Anyone we are required to share it with by law, a regulator or a court.
Where we invest in a company, we may also share relevant information with co-investors and with the company itself, as part of completing and administering the investment.
Where your information is held
Some of our suppliers are based outside the UK, mainly in the United States, so your information may be transferred there. Where that happens we make sure an appropriate safeguard is in place, normally the UK international data transfer addendum to the standard contractual clauses, or the UK extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.
How long we keep information
We keep information for as long as we have a reason to. In deciding how long that is, we look at why we hold it, how sensitive it is, whether there is any risk to you in our holding it, and whether we have a legal, tax or accounting reason to keep it. We review what we hold periodically and remove anything we no longer need.
Two points worth being specific about:
• Where we have invested, or where you have been a member, we keep records for as long as we need them to administer the investment or the membership, and afterwards for as long as our tax and company law obligations require.
• Where a company has applied to us and we did not invest, we keep the application. Founders often come back to us at a later stage, our record of the companies we have seen is part of how our screening improves, and we would rather not treat someone who reapplies as a stranger. We review these records periodically. You can ask us to delete your application at any time.
Keeping information secure
We use reputable suppliers, restrict access to information to the people who need it, and review our arrangements periodically. No transmission over the internet is completely secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect information while we hold it.
Your rights
You have the right to:
• be told how we use your information, which is what this notice is for
• ask for a copy of the information we hold about you
• ask us to correct anything that is wrong
• ask us to delete information we no longer need
• ask us to restrict how we use it
• object to our using it where we rely on legitimate interests
• ask us to transfer it to you or to someone else, where that applies
• withdraw your consent, where we have relied on it
Email [privacy@hermesa.co.uk] to use any of these. We will respond within one month. We do not make decisions about anyone by automated means.
Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first so that we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk, or by calling 0303 123 1113.
Children
This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect information about them.
Changes to this notice
We update this notice when what we do changes. The date at the top shows when it was last revised.
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Hermesa is a trading name of Hermesa Limited, registered in England and Wales, company number 12822899. © 2026 Hermesa. All rights reserved.