Privacy Policy

1. Who we are, and what this policy covers

Shushu is a free, discreet platform for the Israeli startup ecosystem. It helps people interested in Founding Employee roles discover opportunities at early-stage startups, and helps founders reach talent beyond their immediate network.

Shushu is operated by Symbol, a venture capital firm based in Tel Aviv. Shushu is open to the entire ecosystem, not only to Symbol’s portfolio companies. Where this policy says “we”, “us” or “Shushu”, it refers to the operator of the platform.

This policy explains what personal data we collect, why we collect it, who it is shared with, and what you can ask us to do with it. It applies to the shushu.sh website, our intake forms, the personal job board and web app we create for each person who signs up, and the emails we send.

For the purposes of the Protection of Privacy Law, 1981 (התשמ״א) and the regulations made under it (together, the “Privacy Law”), Shushu is the owner and controller of the databases described here.

2. Notice under Section 11 of the Privacy Law

Before you give us anything, you should know:

• You are under no legal obligation to provide us with information. Everything you share with Shushu is given voluntarily, on the basis of your consent.
• Why we ask for it. We use the information to build and maintain your personal job board or your position listing, to identify relevant matches between talent and open roles, to communicate with you about those matches, and to operate, secure and improve the platform.
• Who receives it. Information you give us is disclosed to (a) the other side of a specific match — and only after you have expressly asked us to share it; and (b) the service providers who host and run the platform on our behalf, described in Section 8.
• What happens if you don’t provide it. Some fields are optional and some are required. If required information is missing, we may not be able to create a job board for you or publish your open role.

3. Information we collect

What you give us. Our intake forms ask for contact details, professional background, and what you are looking for. Or, if you are posting a role, contact details, information about your company and its stage, and a description of the position. Each form marks which questions are required and which are optional, so you can see exactly what is being asked before you answer. You may also attach a CV or job description if you want to.

What we retrieve from public sources. To make matches useful, we retrieve and store the contents of the public LinkedIn profiles that you — or, for a position, the company’s founders — link to us. We use that profile text to understand professional background. We only retrieve content that is publicly visible; we do not access private profile content, connections or messages, and we do not log in to any account as you.

What we collect automatically. When you visit shushu.sh, open one of our emails, or use your job board or the web app, we record standard technical and usage information about the visit, and how the link that brought you to us was tagged. Within the platform we also record match-level activity: when a role was surfaced to you, whether you engaged with it, whether you asked us to make an introduction, and any rating or feedback you leave.

We collect only what we need for the purposes in Section 4. If you want to know exactly what we hold about you at any moment, ask us and we will tell you (Section 11).

4. How we use your information

We use personal data to:

• create and maintain your personal job board, or publish and circulate your open role;
• run the matching process that determines which roles are relevant to which people, and present those matches usefully (see Section 5);
• pass your details to the other side of a match, once you have asked us to (see Section 6);
• communicate with you: welcome messages, board and match updates, introduction requests, status changes, and occasional updates about Shushu itself, which you can opt out of;
• apply fair-use limits and review, keep the platform secure, prevent abuse, and comply with legal obligations;
• produce aggregated, de-identified statistics about the Israeli ecosystem;
• occasionally publish fully anonymised showcase posts on social media. These never include your name, your employer, a company name, a website, a founder’s identity, exact figures, or any other identifying detail.

5. Automated processing and AI

Matching on Shushu is algorithmic. We also use large language models to produce short descriptive summaries of profiles and roles, and numeric relevance scores.

These outputs affect how and in what order opportunities are presented. They do not, on their own, disclose your details to anyone, and they do not produce a decision with legal effect. Every introduction requires a person to ask for it, and every hiring decision is made by the founder, not by us.

If you believe a summary about you is inaccurate, contact us and we will correct or remove it.

6. Double opt-in — when your details are shared

• Candidates are never listed, searchable or visible to founders. Founders only ever see people who have asked to be introduced to their specific role.
• We use a proxy email address so that platform correspondence can be done without exposing your real address before an introduction is made.
• When you request an introduction, we share with that founder what they need to evaluate it: who you are, how to look you up, and the context you have provided about what you are looking for. We do not share your other matches.
• Once an introduction is made, the two sides can communicate directly. From that point, what the other party does with your details is governed by their own practices, not by this policy.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not share it with investors, recruiters, data brokers or any third party for their own marketing.

7. Data security

We apply the technical and organisational measures required under the Privacy Protection (Data Security) Regulations, 2017 (התשע״ז), appropriate to the sensitivity of the data we hold. These include encryption in transit, access control and least-privilege permissions for the small internal team, authentication on the web app tied to your verified email address, logging of access to production systems, and contractual security obligations on every service provider that processes data for us.

No system is perfectly secure. If a security incident occurs that is likely to affect you, we will notify you and the Privacy Protection Authority as required by law.

8. Service providers

We rely on a small number of established providers to run the platform on our behalf, for intake forms, for the databases that hold candidate, position and match records, for hosting and content delivery, for email, for internal file storage, and for the language models that generate summaries and relevance scores.

They process data under contract, only on our instructions, and may not use it for their own purposes. We keep a current list of these providers and will share it on request.

9. Transfers outside Israel

Some of these providers store and process data outside Israel. We make such transfers in accordance with the Privacy Protection (Transfer of Data to Databases Abroad) Regulations, 2001 (התשס״א), either to a jurisdiction recognised as providing an adequate level of protection, or under a written undertaking from the recipient to protect the data on terms equivalent to those required of us under Israeli law.

By using Shushu, you consent to your information being transferred and processed in these locations for the purposes described in this policy.

10. How long we keep information

We keep your record for as long as you use Shushu.

If you deactivate, we stop surfacing roles to you, stop sending you match emails, and mark your record inactive. We retain a limited record: enough to honour your deactivation and to keep our own operational history, unless you ask us to delete it. The same applies to a role once it is no longer open.

Two limits are worth stating plainly. We cannot retract details that have already been shared with the other side at your request. And de-identified, aggregated data that cannot be linked back to you may be kept indefinitely.

11. Your rights

Under the Privacy Law you may:

• Access the information we hold about you (Section 13 of the Privacy Law);
• Correct information that is inaccurate, incomplete, out of date or unclear (Section 14);
• Ask us to delete your record;
• Deactivate your account at any time, from the web app or by writing to us;
• Opt out of marketing messages, either through the unsubscribe link in any such email or by writing to us. Transactional messages relating to introductions you have requested are not marketing;
• Withdraw your consent to our processing, which will end your use of the platform going forward.

Write to us at the address in Section 15 and we will respond within the period required by law. There is no charge.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Privacy Protection Authority at the Israeli Ministry of Justice.

12. Cookies and similar technologies

shushu.sh uses only what is necessary to serve the site and to keep you signed in to the web app, together with basic analytics that tell us how people find and move through the site. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies, and we do not allow third parties to place advertising cookies through our site. You can block or delete cookies in your browser, though parts of the web app will not work without session cookies.

Links in our emails may pass through a redirect so that we can tell whether a message was useful. This tells us that a link was clicked; it does not follow you around the web.

13. Age

Shushu is intended for working professionals and is not directed at anyone under the age of 18. Please do not use the platform or send us information if you are under 18.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the platform develops. The current version is always published at shushu.sh, with the date it was last updated at the top. If a change materially affects how we handle your information, we will tell you by email before it takes effect.

15. Contact

Questions, requests, corrections or complaints: