What The VC Lens collects, which services handle it, and the choices you have. No legalese, no surprises.
The VC Lens ("the site", "we") is an editorial and tools platform for startup founders, edited by Sayanee Bhowmik. This policy explains what data is collected when you visit thevclens.com, use the fundraising instruments, subscribe to the newsletter, or become a member — and what happens to it.
Three third-party services do most of the data handling on our behalf: Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, and Substack. Each is covered in its own section below.
We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how the site is used: which pages are read, which instruments are started and completed, how far visitors scroll, and how long they stay. This helps us decide what to build and write next.
Google Analytics sets cookies and collects information such as your approximate location (derived from IP address, which is not stored in full), device and browser type, pages visited, and interactions with the instruments. We do not use it to identify you personally, and we do not send your name or email address to Google Analytics.
You can opt out with the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, or by blocking cookies in your browser settings. See Google's privacy policy.
We use Microsoft Clarity to see how visitors interact with the site — heatmaps, scroll depth, and anonymised session recordings — so we can find confusing layouts and broken flows.
Clarity collects behavioural data such as mouse movements, clicks, and scrolling, along with device and browser information. Text you type into form fields is masked by default and is not recorded. We do not use Clarity to identify individual visitors.
See Microsoft's privacy statement and the Clarity terms.
The newsletter —The VC Lens— is published on Substack. When you subscribe, your email address (and name, if you provide one) is stored by Substack and used to send you the newsletter and, for paid members, to manage your subscription and billing.
Substack also collects reading statistics (opens, clicks) and, for paid subscriptions, processes payments through Stripe. We can see aggregate statistics and the email addresses of subscribers, but we never see your full payment card details.
Every email includes an unsubscribe link. You can also unsubscribe from The VC Lens emails at any time via the unsubscribe page. See Substack's privacy policy.
If you create an account, we store your email address and sign-in credentials (handled by our authentication provider; passwords are never stored in plain text). Membership status is recorded so the member-only instruments, credits and events unlock for you.
When you use a fundraising instrument, the answers you enter are used to generate your result and may be saved to your account so you can return to them. We do not sell this data or share it with investors or other third parties.
You can unsubscribe from emails at any time, block analytics cookies in your browser, and ask us to export or delete the data we hold about you. To make a request, email support@thevclens.com — we respond within 48 hours on weekdays.
If we change this policy, the "last updated" date at the top of this page will change. Material changes will be announced in the newsletter.
Questions · support@thevclens.com