Builders’ Circle

For the people building Europe’s social platforms, apps, protocols and infrastructure.

If you build social technology in Europe, you already know the problem. Your users live on networks which are owned by a handful of oligarchs, governed elsewhere and can change the rules on you overnight. Building a standalone alternative means building all the infrastructure you need, by yourself.

At European.Social we start with a simple idea: connections make us stronger. People connections. Technology connections. Infrastructure connections. Funding connections.

The Builders’ Circle is where Europe’s builders come together, find connections and use them to accelerate and strengthen all the innovative and diverse things they are doing. We’re backed by the teams behind Matrix, the Fediverse and Eurosky. All builders themselves.

Why join

A network bigger than yourself. The cold start is the biggest challenge faced by small plaforms: nobody is there yet, so nobody comes. Connecting through ActivityPub, the AT Protocol or Eurobridge puts your users in touch with like-minded people from day one . It is the single largest advantage of building in the open.

Shared infrastructure. Identity, feeds, federation, account portability, moderation tooling: the open stacks are open source, and the teams that maintain them are in the Circle. Building on top of this infrastructure means you can focus on what makes you different.

Moderation you can afford. You need to keep your users safe, and regulators are increasingly sweeping small platforms up with the big ones. Euromoderation is the Association’s plan to run this as a commons, with shared tooling, threat intelligence, and policy templates, governed through the Trust & Safety Council. By joining the Builders’ Circle you make sure this is built around your needs.
Portability as a feature. On the open stacks, users keep their identity and their followers if they leave you. For a platform trying to win people away from incumbents that lock them in, that’s a powerful offer.

Institutional customers. Coalition members are already bringing newsrooms, broadcasters, universities and municipalities onto open infrastructure in France, Germany and the Netherlands, and those institutions need platforms to deploy on.
Funding you cannot reach alone. EU calls want consortia. Cascade funders want grantees. European.Social can help you tap into both.

A voice in the rooms where it matters. We’re already represented at the DC-EDIC, and in conversations across Europe. We’ll make sure your voice is heard where it counts.

People, people, people. A community that shares your dreams, highs and lows. Solving problems together.

What we ask

1. Share our values. Eight principles which mean we’re building for a better European future: open socials as a critical layer of the European tech stack, digital autonomy, decentralised networks, European content, diverse ownership and business models, democracy built in, and open source throughout. You can show your support by signing the declaration.

2. Explore connections. We’re not expecting you to do everything at once. Some platforms may want to jump onto the Fediverse or the Atmosphere. Most will start small, sharing moderation, or working on portable identity.

3. Bring yourselves. People working together is what makes us stronger. We’ll be bringing together the Builders’ Circle at FOSDEM in Brussels, at the Atmosphere Conference in Amsterdam, and at our inaugral annual gathering at PublicSpaces. We’ll set up a shared online space too. We’d love to see you there.

FAQs

Do I need to be on an open protocol already? No. The Circle includes platforms built on ActivityPub and the AT Protocol, and platforms that are not yet. What we ask is that you commit to getting there, at a pace that works for you, and the Circle exists to make that cheap: Eurobridge for the connection, the protocol teams for the code and the know-how. A platform that shares the values but cannot make that commitment is welcome as an Organisational Supporter.

Is this membership of the Association? Not yet. For the founding period everyone who signs is a supporter, placed in the circle that fits them. The circles are convened and consulted; decisions rest with the civil-society Board. Formal membership, with voting rights, follows once the Association is established, and founding supporters will be first in line.

Is there a charge? No. We’ll look at this when we move to a membership structure.

Sign before 4 November 2026 and you’ll be listed as a founding member of the Builders’ Circle.

Join the Builders' Circle.