Flipboard has acquired Graze, a Portland-based startup that lets people build and monetize custom feeds on Bluesky and other services using the AT Protocol. The deal will combine Graze’s feed-building and advertising technology with Flipboard’s existing open social web products, including Surf.
Graze launched 21 months ago and says its feeds have delivered more than 41 billion posts to about 12 million people. The platform currently supports more than 7,000 feeds, with around 60% of its traffic monetized.
Graze Lets Feed Creators Earn From Contextual Ads
Graze allows users to build, customize, publish, and manage curated social feeds without writing code. Its advertising system places ads based on the subject of a feed rather than tracking individual users across the web.
For example, an advertiser looking to reach game developers could place an ad in a feed created for that community. Feed curators can decide which ads appear, while 70% of the resulting revenue goes to the creator and 30% to Graze.
Flipboard CEO Mike McCue said the model allows advertising without relying on surveillance-based targeting while also distributing revenue to the people who build feeds.
Flipboard Plans to Extend Graze Beyond Bluesky
Flipboard had already been using Graze technology inside Surf, its browser for the open social web. The companies began working more closely before deciding they could reduce duplicated development by combining their operations.
Graze co-founder and CEO Devin Gaffney said in the company’s acquisition announcement that Flipboard already has infrastructure and advertiser relationships that would have taken Graze significantly longer to build independently.
Following the acquisition, Graze will continue operating and its technology will remain available to existing users. Flipboard plans to expand its feed-building capabilities beyond Bluesky to other services running on the AT Protocol, including its own products.
Graze described the combined approach as having Surf serve as a browser for feeds across Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, RSS, and other sources, while Graze provides the tools for creating, managing, and monetizing those feeds.
Deal Terms Were Not Disclosed
Flipboard did not disclose the financial terms of the acquisition. Graze raised $1 million in early 2025 and currently has a two-person team.
Flipboard has increasingly invested in decentralized social products, including Surf. Earlier this year, the company also introduced social websites that allow creators and communities to combine posts, videos, podcasts, and conversations into independent destinations powered by customizable Surf feeds.
Featured image credits: Jorge Quinteros via Flickr
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