A group of 20 Snap alumni have come together to launch a fund called Ghost Angels to support the next generation of social media. The fund refused to disclose the amount it has raised so far, but it says it has supported at least five companies and plans to deploy the remaining capital over the next year in at least 15 companies.
Max Rivera, who led global partnerships at Snap, started the fund in 2025 to formalize Snap’s already growing alumni angel investing community. Although Rivera runs the fund, there are about 20 other founding members and investors, including a small number who are still at Snap, along with alumni like Alexandra Levitt, who ran Snap’s accelerator, and Will Wu, who was a founding member of Snap’s product and design team.
“We were intentional about the mix,” Rivera, who currently works in Microsoft’s AI division, told TechCrunch, noting that Ghost Angels wanted to bring in former top executives alongside those who were earlier in their careers as well. “This diversity of ideas and experiences is at the core of how we evaluate deals and support founders.”
A lot has changed since he started working at Snap nearly 10 years ago. Today, people who build companies have smaller teams, while founders “hit the ground running and iterate in public.”
“We’re seeing different monetization models being tried other than subscription ads and tokens [and] “Usage-based, or even results-based.” “Founders are also at the forefront, with founder-led GTM as a key pillar.”
Naturally, the fund focuses on investing in AI startups that are thriving in social and consumer media. Rivera said one of the biggest trends he’s noticed about the next generation of social media is how “social media” and “media” are actually divided. The idea of what consumers know today as social media is a platform that relies heavily on ads, with an algorithm driving content and recommendations.
“A lot of people are disappointed with it compared to the original promise of connecting the people in your life,” Rivera said. TechCrunch reported last year that the next generation of social media was moving away from building generic platforms and toward niche communities.
“On the social side, we are supporting founders who are applying AI in innovative ways to finally deliver on this original promise,” Rivera continued. “And from the media side [we’re backing] Native AI formats and generative creative tools across media types, from music to gaming, sports and fashion, dramatically reduce barriers to creativity and distribution.
This post has been updated to clarify where Max Rivera works.
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