Terms of Membership

Between you and Wadi Hussain, trading as Blackbook London. Upon incorporation of a private limited company in England and Wales, these terms will transfer to and bind that company. By accepting an invitation and completing the joining process, you agree to these terms. If you do not, do not accept the invitation.

A private network. Members say what they can open for someone else, and what they need. When those match, we ask both people privately whether they want to be introduced. If both say yes, we put them in touch and step out of the way.

That is the whole service. We are an introduction layer, not a marketplace, not a messaging platform, and not an adviser.

By referral only. There is no open sign-up. A person who has not been referred can ask to be considered through the form on our site, but nobody joins that way: if we think they belong here, an invitation follows, and it is the invitation that admits them.

Someone vouches for you. The member who invited you has their name attached to your membership for as long as you are here. If you are asked to leave, they are told why. We think you should know that before you accept.

Everyone speaks to a founder. No exceptions, whoever referred you.

We can say no without giving a reason, and we will not enter into a discussion about it. That is what keeps the standard.

Invitations are limited and personal to you. They are not transferable, and they are not to be sold, traded or offered as an inducement.

Be who you say you are. Every member relies on it being true of every other member. Misrepresenting your role, your firm or your authority is the one thing that ends a membership immediately.

Keep what you learn here to yourself. Membership is confidential. Who else is a member is confidential. What you learn through an introduction is confidential. Do not repeat any of it outside, publish it, screenshot it, or feed it into anything.

Do not solicit. Blackbook is not a place to sell to the membership. No marketing, no mailing lists, no pitching the room. An introduction is an introduction.

Give as well as take. We record introductions you make and introductions you receive, and we look at the balance once a year. Members who only take are asked to leave.

Be honest about closeness. When you say how well you know someone, say what is true. An inflated number wastes another member's time and damages your standing with us.

Respect a no. If someone declines an introduction, that is the end of it. Do not approach them another way using what you learned here.

Do not build against the room. Membership is for making and receiving introductions. You may not use your membership, or anything you learn through it, to build, fund, advise or assist a service that competes with Blackbook, and you may not copy, scrape, or systematically record any part of the platform.

The platform is ours. The design, the words, the software and the way they work together belong to Blackbook, and membership grants no rights over any of them.

The obligations in this section survive the end of your membership, however it ends.

1. You ask for an introduction, or offer to make one.
2. Nothing is sent yet. The other person's identity is not revealed to you.
3. We ask them, privately, giving them the shape of the request but not your name.
4. Only if they agree are identities and contact details released to both of you.
5. If they decline, you are told the introduction did not proceed. You are not told that they declined, or why. Declining costs nothing and carries no signal.

You can withdraw a request at any point before release.

Once an introduction is released, the conversation is yours. It happens on your own channels, not ours, and we do not see it.

We vouch for the person. We never vouch for the deal.

We take reasonable steps to confirm that a member is who they say they are, holds the role they claim, and has the authority they describe. That is the extent of it.

We do not:

• assess, endorse, recommend or approve any transaction, investment, business or opportunity introduced through Blackbook;
• give investment advice, financial advice, legal advice or tax advice;
• arrange, advise on, or deal in investments;
• carry out due diligence on anything a member proposes to another member;
• take any part in, or any fee from, anything that follows an introduction.

Any diligence on a transaction is yours. If a member introduces you to an opportunity, evaluate it as you would evaluate anything from any other source, and take your own professional advice. Our confirming who someone is says nothing whatsoever about what they are proposing.

You are responsible for making sure your membership and anything you do through it complies with your employer's rules, your regulator's rules, and any duty of confidentiality you owe someone else.

Some employers restrict outside business activity, or require pre-clearance. Some regulated firms restrict where business conversations may take place. We have no visibility of your obligations and cannot advise you on them. Please check before you join, not after.

You can leave whenever you like, from your settings or by emailing us. Your profile disappears. We erase your personal data, but we indefinitely retain a pseudonymous record of your invitation lineage (who you invited, and who invited you) to protect the integrity of the closed network. What is kept for a fixed period after you leave, and why, is set out in our Privacy Policy.

We may end your membership if you misrepresent yourself, breach confidentiality, solicit the membership, behave in a way that damages another member, or take without ever giving.

Removals are silent. The profile disappears and no announcement is made. The member who referred you is told the reason; nobody else is. We extend the same discretion to you that we would want extended to us.

We provide a service that puts two people in touch. We are not responsible for what either of them does next, for anything that comes of it, or for anything one member says or does to another. We do not guarantee that an introduction will be made, that a member will respond, or that anything will result.

We are not excluding liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded.

Membership is strictly by invitation. The standard annual initiation fee is £1,200. We reserve the right to waive this fee for founding members at our discretion. If your fee status changes, we will provide 30 days' notice.

Set out in our Privacy Policy, which forms part of these terms. In short: we hold little, we show other members less, we never sell any of it, and we delete introduction records after 30 days.

If we change anything that materially affects you, we will tell you directly and give you reasonable notice. Continuing to use Blackbook after that is acceptance. If you would rather leave, you can, and section 8 applies.

Changes so far. Version 1.1, 16 September 2026: section 3 now says that a person who has not been referred can ask to be considered, and that only an invitation admits anyone. Nothing else changed. Version 1.0, 13 September 2026: first version in force.

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.