Graze, the creator of personalized feeds, is developing a business on Bluesky, attracting the attention of investors.
A new company called Graze has caught the attention of investors by allowing users to create their own feeds on the social network Bluesky. In addition to providing tools,
A startup called Graze has begun attracting investor interest by offering the ability to create personalized feeds for the social network Bluesky. This tool allows users to easily build, customize, publish, and manage their feeds on the platform. Additionally, Graze plans to introduce features that will enable content creators to monetize their efforts through advertising, sponsored posts, and subscriptions. This suggests that Graze has discovered a viable business model for Bluesky, even before the social network itself.
Graze is about to announce the closure of a pre-seed funding round that has exceeded initial expectations. Peat Bakke, co-founder and CEO of Graze, comments on the rapid growth of the tool: “I have worked in tech startups for 30 years, and this is the craziest growth I have seen in an early stage.” The startup has gone from having no traffic to serving hundreds of thousands of unique users daily, generating tens of millions of content impressions, all through word of mouth.
Accompanying Bakke is Devin Gaffney, also a co-founder, who has experience in social media analytics. Together, they started collaborating about 12 years ago at Little Bird, a social data analytics startup that used Twitter's "Firehose" to extract useful insights for businesses. Now, they are working with Bluesky's "Jetstream," which aggregates public posts from over 30.3 million users.
In light of the exodus of millions of users from X to Bluesky over the past year, especially following the U.S. presidential elections, Bakke and Gaffney decided to explore this space again. In November, they launched Graze, a tool that allows Bluesky users to "create their own algorithm" by building personalized feeds with complex logic and multiple filters. Graze's growth has been bolstered by the increasing popularity of Bluesky, which has added 23 million users in the past year.
Unlike X, which is centrally managed by wealthy individuals, Bluesky offers a more democratic experience where anyone can operate their own Personal Data Server and set moderation controls. Users can also filter the network's content in their own way, without solely relying on Bluesky's algorithm.
In addition to generating feeds, Graze allows the creation of websites and experiences based on its filtered version of the Jetstream. One Graze client is developing a social platform dedicated to professional cycling, with the ability to create algorithms that identify and track specific teams and individuals, as well as moderate the feed to make it "work-friendly."
One of the most innovative aspects of Graze is its collaboration with the Bluesky team to monetize these personalized feeds. The startup has already conducted tests with sponsored posts, integrating ads into the customized feeds using a hashtag that identifies the advertisements. This model allows feed operators to maintain full control over their content, ensuring that quality is not compromised by advertising.
Graze sets advertising rates that are significantly lower than those on other social networks, with a CPM ranging from $1 to $3, although so far, click-through rates and engagement are comparable. Additionally, the startup adheres to Bluesky's privacy guidelines, meaning that ads are not targeted through the collection of personal data, but rather through the feeds that the advertiser wishes to reach.
Soon, Graze will also offer the option of private feeds that may require a subscription for access. With the intention of implementing both ads and subscriptions, the startup envisions a revenue distribution model of 30/70, where creators take the larger share. Finally, Graze plans to launch a marketplace for creators that connects brands and businesses with the feeds that best suit their interests.
