A bunch of 20 Snap alumni has come collectively to launch a fund referred to as Ghost Angels to again the following era of social media. The fund declined to reveal how a lot it has raised to date, however says it has backed at the very least 5 firms and plans to deploy the remaining capital throughout the subsequent yr into at the very least 15 firms.
Max Rivera, who as soon as led world partnerships at Snap, began the fund in 2025 to formalize the already-growing Snap alumni angel-investing neighborhood. Although Rivera runs the fund, there are round 20 different founder members and buyers, together with a small variety of these nonetheless at Snap, alongside alumni like Alexandra Levitt, who ran Snap’s company accelerator, and Will Wu, who was a founding member of Snap’s product and design workforce.
“We had been intentional concerning the combine,” Rivera, who presently works at Microsoft’s AI division, advised TechCrunch, noting that Ghost Angels wished to usher in former senior executives alongside these earlier of their careers, too. “That range of thought and expertise is core to how we consider offers and help founders.”
A lot has modified since he first began at Snap practically 10 years in the past. As we speak, the folks constructing firms have a lot leaner groups, whereas “founders are launching quick and iterating in public.”
“We’re seeing experimentation of various monetization fashions past advertisements with subscriptions, token [and] usage-based, and even outcome-based,” he stated. “Founders are additionally extra within the forefront, with founder-led GTM as a key pillar.”
On the similar time, Molly DeWolf Swenson, co-founder and CEO of Ghost Angels portfolio firm Mozi, stated that the “Snap alumni community is stuffed with sensible, influential individuals who inherently perceive the issue area I’m taking part in in.”
Naturally, the fund is concentrated on investing in pre-seed to seed AI startups which are constructing in social media and shopper. Rivera stated one of many largest developments he has observed concerning the subsequent era of social media is how “social” and “media” have truly break up. The thought of what shoppers know as social media as we speak is a platform that depends closely on advertisements, with an algorithm driving content material and suggestions.
“Lots of people are disillusioned with that relative to the unique promise of connecting folks in your life,” Rivera stated. TechCrunch reported final yr that the following era of social media was shifting away from constructing generalized platforms and towards area of interest communities.
“On the social facet, we’re backing founders which are making use of AI in inventive methods to lastly ship on that unique promise,” Rivera continued. “On the media facet, [we’re backing] AI native codecs and generative inventive instruments throughout totally different media sorts, from music to gaming, sports activities, and trend, which are dramatically reducing the barrier to creation and distribution.”
This submit was up to date to make clear the place Max Rivera works.
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