Flipboard has acquired Graze, a platform designed for creating personalized social algorithms.

      Flipboard has acquired Graze, a startup based in Portland that enables creators to develop, adjust, and monetize custom social feeds without coding, primarily on Bluesky. Graze reports that since its inception 21 months ago, it has delivered over 41 billion posts to 12 million users.

      Flipboard is now taking control of the framework for custom social feeds by purchasing Graze, which empowers creators and publishers to create, refine, and monetize their own algorithms without the need for coding. The scale of the operation is notable given the team's size; Graze has communicated that it has delivered more than 41 billion posts to 12 million users in the 21 months since it was founded, with most activity occurring on the newly funded Bluesky platform.

      The team consists of just two individuals. Co-founder Devin Gaffney and engineer Nick Gerakines are both transitioning to Flipboard after two of the original three founders departed last year; specific financial details of the acquisition weren't disclosed.

      The funding Graze received was modest, having raised $1 million in a pre-seed round in April 2025, spearheaded by Betaworks, with participation from Salesforce Ventures Factorial, Apertu Capital, Skyseed, along with angels from Mozilla and Protocol Labs.

      Flipboard has been preparing for this move for some time. Under the leadership of CEO Mike McCue, the company has invested in technologies including AT Protocol, ActivityPub, and RSS, and has unveiled Surf, a browser tailored for the open social web.

      Gaffney describes the alignment as mechanical, stating, “Surf will act as the browser for the open social web,” while “Graze will serve as the engine powering those feeds.” He emphasizes the importance of curation, arguing that amidst the clutter generated by legacy platforms due to generative AI, a curatorial function in shaping the algorithm is essential for sustaining an attention economy.

      In Europe, a simplified version of this concept exists due to legal requirements. Article 38 of the Digital Services Act mandates that very large online platforms provide at least one recommendation option that does not rely on profiling.

      The distinction lies in their purposes: while the regulation allows users to disable the algorithm, Graze is designed to enable individuals to create and profit from a superior one.

      The core of the open social web has a European influence, as seen with Mastodon, a German platform that has transitioned to a non-profit model and continuously finds new ways for users to follow creators without needing an account.

      The question moving forward is a business one rather than a protocol issue. Two individuals managed to create a feed engine of this magnitude with a million dollars, and it remains to be seen whether curating attention can yield better returns than simply harvesting it.