Graze Builds on Bluesky: Custom Feed Builder Attracts Investment

Graze: Building a Business on Bluesky and Attracting Investment

A startup named Graze, focused on enabling users to construct personalized feeds for the Bluesky social network, has successfully garnered the attention of investors. The platform provides comprehensive tools for building, tailoring, publishing, and overseeing Bluesky feeds.

Soon, Graze will introduce monetization options for feed creators, including advertising opportunities, sponsored content, and subscription models.

A Viable Business Model Emerges

Essentially, Graze has identified a potentially sustainable business strategy for Bluesky prior to the social network’s own implementation of such features. This has not gone unnoticed by investors, as Graze is preparing to announce the completion of an oversubscribed pre-seed funding round.

“In my 30 years of experience with tech startups, I’ve rarely witnessed such rapid early-stage growth,” states Peat Bakke, co-founder and CEO of Graze, regarding the tool’s adoption rate. “We transitioned from having no traffic to serving hundreds of thousands of unique users daily, generating tens of millions of content impressions. It’s remarkable, truly remarkable, and driven entirely by word of mouth.”

The Team Behind Graze

Bakke is partnered with co-founder Devin Gaffney, who brings expertise in social media and network analysis. The pair initially collaborated approximately 12 years ago on Little Bird, a social data analytics startup.

Little Bird utilized Twitter’s complete data stream, known as the “Firehose,” to derive valuable insights for businesses.

Leveraging Bluesky’s Jetstream

Now, they are working with the next generation’s data source: the “Jetstream” provided by Bluesky, the open and decentralized social network. Jetstream encompasses all public posts from its growing user base of over 30.3 million, as well as data from future applications built on the AT Protocol (also referred to as AT Proto).

“Our consistent interest lies in social networks, particularly those that are new and expanding, to observe emerging trends,” Bakke explains.

Following the mass migration from X to Bluesky over the past year, particularly after the U.S. presidential elections, the founders recognized an opportunity to re-enter this space.

In November, they initiated the development of Graze, a tool empowering Bluesky users to essentially “design their own algorithm” through custom feeds built with intricate logic, filters, and rules. The tool has quickly gained traction.

Growth Fueled by Bluesky’s Popularity

Graze’s expansion is directly correlated with Bluesky’s increasing user base, which has grown by 23 million in the last year.

While Bluesky shares similarities with X in its text-based format, timeline, and direct messaging, it offers a more decentralized experience. Unlike platforms controlled by individuals like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, anyone can operate their own Bluesky Personal Data Server and establish their own moderation policies.

Users can also create custom feeds to curate content, rather than solely relying on Bluesky’s algorithm.

Graze functions on Bluesky’s Jetstream and integrates with AT Proto, enabling the creation of not only feeds but also personalized websites and experiences based on filtered Jetstream data.

For example, a Graze client is developing a social media platform dedicated to professional cycling. Utilizing Graze’s tools, they can create algorithms to identify and track specific teams and individuals, while also ensuring the feed remains “workplace safe.”

The platform also powered the creation of popular Bluesky feeds such as News and BookSky.

Furthermore, several applications aiming to replicate a “TikTok for Bluesky”-style video experience are leveraging Graze’s toolset.

Monetization with Bluesky’s Support

Notably, Graze is among the first platforms actively working to monetize custom Bluesky feeds, and it is doing so with the approval of the Bluesky team.

The startup has already conducted preliminary tests with sponsored posts, integrating advertisements into custom feeds. (As Bluesky lacks native ad differentiation, these posts utilize a hashtag to identify them as advertisements.)

“Temu cannot simply purchase $100,000 worth of advertising on someone’s news feed,” Bakke clarifies. Instead, advertisers propose a sponsored post and the desired number of impressions. “The feed operator must provide consent, maintaining complete editorial control over the feed’s content.”

He also notes that excessive advertising could lead users to abandon a feed, creating a natural balancing mechanism.

Advertisers can set pricing, with Graze initially recommending a CPM rate of $1 to $3. This is a quarter of the cost of advertising on other social networks, yet click-through rates and engagement remain comparable.

Graze adheres to Bluesky’s privacy guidelines, meaning advertisements are not targeted based on personal data or demographics, but rather on the specific feeds the advertiser wishes to reach. (For instance, a cat food brand would likely benefit from advertising within a cat-focused feed.)

Additional Graze features, including private feeds requiring subscription payments, are forthcoming.

With both advertising and subscriptions, Graze anticipates a 30/70 revenue split, mirroring the App Store model, with creators receiving the larger share. The company will also launch a creator marketplace next week to connect brands and businesses with relevant feeds.

Graze, based in Portland, currently comprises a team of three, including front-end developer Andrew Lisowski, who is located in San Jose.