Flipboard has announced its acquisition of Graze, a Portland-based startup known for its feed-building technology that supports monetization on the open social web. Graze specializes in tools that enable users to build, customize, and manage curated Bluesky feeds—social post streams that users can set as their main feed or integrate into other apps using Bluesky’s AT Protocol. Since its launch 21 months ago, Graze reports having delivered over 41 billion posts to around 12 million users. The company’s core idea is to empower creators and communities to monetize their feeds through contextual advertising that respects user privacy.

Graze’s unique ad approach avoids traditional data tracking and surveillance models by offering contextual ads targeted to specific feed audiences. Advertisers can place ads within feeds relevant to particular communities without profiling individual users, and feed creators have full control over which ads run. Revenue generated from advertisements is shared, with 70% going directly to the feed creators and the remainder to Graze. Currently, Graze hosts more than 7,000 feeds, and about 60% of the platform’s traffic is monetized, signaling a healthy demand for privacy-conscious ad solutions within the open social web.

Flipboard CEO Mike McCue highlighted the alignment between the two companies’ visions, praising Graze’s privacy-forward ad technology and the equitable sharing of advertising revenue with content curators. Flipboard had already integrated Graze’s technology into its Surf app, an application for browsing the open social web. The acquisition formalizes their cooperation and intends to accelerate innovation by combining Flipboard’s existing advertiser relationships with Graze’s feed-building capabilities. Post-acquisition, users will still enjoy Graze’s tools to create and monetize feeds across the Bluesky network and other AT Protocol-based apps, including Flipboard’s own.

Although the financial terms were not disclosed, the deal is considered modest since Graze had raised just $1 million by early 2025 and operated with a small team of two. Graze co-founder Devin Gaffney noted that joining forces with Flipboard provides the infrastructure needed to grow faster. This move strengthens Flipboard’s stake in the expanding open social ecosystem, offering creators new ways to engage audiences and generate income while maintaining user privacy in an increasingly data-conscious digital landscape.