A group of 20 Snap alumni has launched Ghost Angels, a fund that backs pre-seed to seed AI startups in social media and consumer, and says it has already invested in at least five companies with plans to deploy remaining capital into at least 15 more within the next year. Max Rivera, who led global partnerships at Snap and now works at Microsoft’s AI division, started the fund in 2025 to formalize the growing Snap alumni angel-investing community.
Investment Focus And Trends
Ghost Angels targets AI-native startups where “social” and “media” have split, betting on AI that delivers on the original promise of connecting people while also advancing generative creative tools across music, gaming, sports, and fashion. Rivera said founders are launching fast with lean teams, iterating in public, and experimenting beyond ads with subscriptions, token-based, usage-based, or outcome-based monetization, with founder-led go-to-market as a key pillar.
Team Composition And Network Value
The fund deliberately mixes former senior executives with earlier-career alumni, including Snap accelerator lead Alexandra Levitt and founding product/design team member Will Wu, alongside a small number of current Snap employees. Portfolio company Mozi co-founder and CEO Molly DeWolf Swenson said the Snap alumni network is full of influential people who inherently understand the problem space, giving founders valuable domain insight and support.
Shift Toward Niche Communities
TechCrunch reported last year that next-generation social media is moving away from generalized ad-driven platforms toward niche communities. Ghost Angels is backing founders who apply AI creatively to rebuild connection-focused social experiences and to lower barriers to creation and distribution with AI-native formats and generative tools.
Featured image credits: Allied One Marketing
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