Flipboard has announced the acquisition of Graze, a Portland based startup that lets creators, publishers, and everyday users build, tune, and monetize custom social media algorithms without writing code. The deal brings together Flipboard's front-end discovery experience and Graze's back-end algorithmic engine to accelerate the growth of the open social web. Financial terms were not disclosed, and both companies confirmed that Graze's core platform will remain online for current users.
Scale and Technical Capabilities
Graze has delivered more than 41 billion posts to 12 million users in the 21 months since it was founded. Much of this activity has taken place on Bluesky, the rapidly growing decentralized social network. The startup reached that scale with a team of only two people, co-founder Devin Gaffney and engineer Nick Gerakines, who will both join Flipboard as part of the acquisition.
Shared Vision for the Open Social Web
Graze co-founder Devin Gaffney described the combined company as two halves of one machine. He explained that Surf, Flipboard's browser for the open social web, will be where people read and discover feeds across Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, RSS, and other networks. Graze will act as the engine under those feeds, allowing curators to build, tune, and monetize an algorithm without writing a single line of code.
Operational and Strategic Fit
As a lean team, Graze faced operational slowdowns and had to manage responsibilities beyond its core focus. Gaffney said joining Flipboard allows the startup to accelerate development by using Flipboard's established infrastructure rather than rebuilding existing systems from scratch. Flipboard chief executive Mike McCue added that Graze has built a special tool that has already benefited many curators, community builders, creators, and developers.
Funding and Market Context
Graze raised a one million dollar pre-seed round in April 2025 led by Betaworks. The round included Salesforce Ventures Factorial, Apertu Capital, Skyseed, and angel investors from Mozilla and Protocol Labs. The acquisition reflects growing interest in creator-owned attention models as generative AI begins to affect legacy platforms and increases demand for curated social feeds.
A Curatorial Alternative to Legacy Platforms
Gaffney wrote that he and McCue share a vision of an attention economy that works for everyone. They believe a curatorial role in shaping the algorithm is the only sustainable way to run that attention economy into the future. The two executives argue that as generative AI clogs legacy platforms, users and creators need alternatives that prioritize human judgment and customized discovery tools.
Existing Users and Future Plans
Existing Graze users can expect the core product and service to remain online as the two companies combine their offerings. The combined entities aim to provide a creator-first alternative to closed legacy platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, with more ownership over what users see and how they earn. Flipboard plans to continue advancing Graze as the ultimate feed building and hosting platform while integrating its capabilities with Surf and Flipboard.
The acquisition signals continued momentum for user-controlled algorithms and open social networking. By combining Flipboard's discovery tools with Graze's feed engine, the companies hope to prove that curated attention can be a viable alternative to engagement-driven feeds. With a very small team and modest funding, Graze built substantial scale, and the combined operation now has the resources to expand that vision across platforms.