Romanian startup eYou has raised €300,000 (approximately $345,000) in pre-seed funding from Fil Rouge Capital, with a clear thesis: social media's biggest problem isn't engagement, it's trust.

Co-founded by CEO Jasseem Allybokus and CCO Grégoire Vigroux, eYou is building a social network that bakes real-time fact-checking and feed transparency directly into the core product, rather than treating them as afterthoughts bolted onto an existing platform. In a LinkedIn post announcing the round, Vigroux framed the ambition in explicitly geopolitical terms, arguing that the future of social media shouldn't be decided only in Silicon Valley or Beijing, and that Europe needs to build its own platforms.

The product pitch rests on two pillars. First, real-time verification: users will be able to fact-check any post in a single click, triggering a pop-up assessment when they engage with content. Second, feed transparency: rather than the opaque, black-box recommendation systems used by major platforms, eYou says users will be able to see and directly edit what their algorithm builds for them.

The fact-checking layer draws on what the company describes as credible, neutral sources, designed to let users challenge misinformation without having to leave the conversation to verify it elsewhere.

The timing isn't incidental. X has faced sustained regulatory pressure in Europe, including formal proceedings opened by the European Commission in December 2023 under the Digital Services Act, with continued scrutiny focused on its recommendation system. That backdrop gives a new entrant like eYou a specific kind of opening not necessarily to replace X or Facebook outright, but to capture users who want more confidence in what they're reading and more control over how their feed shapes their thinking.

eYou is targeting a public launch in May 2026 across mobile and web, with a public waitlist already open. Early sign-ups can earn an "Early Believer" badge.

Whether the platform actually breaks through will come down to execution specifically, whether fact-checking can be made fast and fair in an information landscape that changes by the hour. But the funding round itself signals something worth noting: there may be real appetite for a social platform designed around trust as much as attention.