West Co Raises $29M to Reconstruct Social Media

Two veterans of the attention economy say they do, too. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp raised $29 million for West Co, a new social startup whose first app, Tangle, is experimenting with an “intention-first feed” rather than yet another endless scroll. First reported by the Financial Times citing executive comments and filings, it noted that Spark Capital led the seed round — a notably large early gamble on a product that is still in invite-only trials.

The pitch behind Tangle and its intention-first design

Rather than asking “What’s happening?” Tangle leads with “What’s your intention for today?” Users set goals with a small group of friends, then gather to look back at how plans aligned with reality. Sharp has put the ambition simply: dial back some of the “terrible devastation” that feeds tuned to outrage and compulsion have wreaked. Stone has warned that the app could change significantly before a public release, but the core bet — elevating purpose over performance — signals a different center of gravity.

That premise is in line with a larger “time well spent” movement, which has been pushing platforms toward features like quiet hours, break reminders or chronological sorting. What Tangle does differently is make intention the content, not a safety sidebar. It’s the way the structure works, not an optional toggle.

What history tells us about reinventing society

Silicon Valley has attempted this in the past. Path flirted with intimacy at a cap of 150 friends. Ello promised an ad-free refuge. BeReal exploded by eschewing filters, then grappled with growth once the novelty wore off. More recent federated networks, like Mastodon and Bluesky, decentralize control but still wrestle with issues of moderation, onboarding and network effects. The moral of the story is: Values statements are easy; incentives and design details determine the future.

Network effects, after all, are still a very large moat. The vast majority of adults in the U.S. use at least one social media site, with users favoring YouTube, Facebook and Instagram — in that descending order. That’s according to a new study from Pew Research Center that is based on a survey of more than 1,500 people across the country. Any contender has to capture daily habit, not just downloads, and show a social “why now” beyond fatigue with the status quo.

Why an intention-first social feed could actually work

Valid science lurks behind that cue. Years of research on “implementation intentions,” pioneered by the psychologist Peter Gollwitzer, have found that writing down specific if-then plans enhances goal attainment. Those minor, in-the-moment commitments in front of peers can make us more accountable and less likely to procrastinate without being subject to punitive nudges.

Public health signals also make it worth experimenting. The U.S. Surgeon General has cautioned that social media may be harmful to the mental health of young people, and the American Psychological Association is calling for technology features that provide individuals with choice or autonomy rather than pushing them into compulsive patterns of use. But if Tangle can do what no other app has yet managed and translate intention setting into calmer rhythms — fewer notifications, slower feedback loops, smaller groups — it could measurably lower contributors’ stress without severing connections from your life.

The problem of the algorithm still matters

Intention prompts alone will not offset the engagement mechanics that fuel anxiety and polarization. What counts for behavior is rank order: what comes out, when and why. Making Tangle its best by highlighting a chronological list of goals and updates from contacts you trust shifts the incentives away from performative posting. If it employs opaque scoring that’s been tuned to optimize daily opens, we’ll end up back on the same treadmill — only with a softer font.

Transparency will be key. Lucid reasons for why items appear, clear controls so that users can make things rank differently, and auditability — all are concepts supported by regulators under the EU’s Digital Services Act — that match product with mission. Settings that are private by default, restrictions on resharing and rate limits for viral content would additionally dull the dynamics that supercharge harmful posts elsewhere.

It’s all about incentives and business model

$29 million signals ambition — and expectations. Advertising models often kick back to growth and the intensity of engagement; subscription or enterprise offerings might reward depth and retention. Seed rounds typically amount to low single-digit millions, according to PitchBook data; fundraising well in excess of that puts West Co under pressure not just to grow but also to do so quickly. How it monetizes will either echo or limit its claims of humane design.

One potential business might be tiered subscriptions for individuals or groups, such as private circles for families, classrooms or workplaces, combined with strict data minimization. It creates a paying customer with whom you have aligned goals: fewer, better sessions, strong retention, and clear outcomes.

Set rules for safety and measurement, and don’t compromise

Any social app seeking reflection should be ready to confront the most difficult challenges: harassment, self-harm content and misinformation. Safety-by-design solutions — proactive filters, friction on uninvited contact and well-resourced moderation, crisis-escalation procedures — are table stakes. The only way West Co would break away from the industry’s trust deficit is by providing independent research access, impact assessments and publishing well-being metrics (and not just daily active users).

Success should mean something different: shorter average session length, flat day-30 retention in low cohorts, lower report rates for abuse, reported improvement of mood and goal completion by users. Those are tractable numbers that reflect what the product actually is.

What to watch next as West Co prepares a public launch

Three early indicators will show whether West Co is serious:

• Defaults that favor tight, small private circles over loose public feeds
• A ranked feed that is explainable, adjustable and optionally chronological like Facebook’s once was
• A revenue model that does not incentivize rapid content production and distribution

If those appear in the public launch — and if leadership will allow outside audits — Tangle could develop enough credibility to go up against established habits.

No single app is going to “fix” social media. But a company run by builders who helped invent the modern feed has an unusual opportunity to reimagine its incentives from scratch. If intention can become the atomic unit of sharing — not rage, not clout — that would be progress worth replicating.