Snap Alumni Form Ghost Angels Fund to Invest in Early-Stage AI Social and Consumer Startups

A group of 20 Snap alumni launched Ghost Angels in 2025 to invest in pre-seed and seed AI startups focused on social media and consumer products. Max Rivera, who once led global partnerships at Snap and now works at Microsoft’s AI lab, started the fund to formalize an existing network of Snap alumni angel investors.

The fund has backed at least five companies and plans to deploy the remaining capital into at least 15 companies within the next year.

It declined to disclose the total amount raised. Rivera said the group was intentional about mixing former senior executives with investors earlier in their careers. “That diversity of thought and experience is core to how we evaluate deals and support founders,” he told TechCrunch.

Other members include Alexandra Levitt, who ran Snap’s corporate accelerator, and Will Wu, a founding member of Snap’s product and design team. A small number of current Snap employees are also part of the group. Rivera noted that founders today operate with leaner teams and launch faster than when he joined Snap nearly ten years ago.

He said the fund is seeing experimentation with monetization models beyond advertising, including subscriptions, token-based systems, and outcome-based pricing. Ghost Angels is targeting two distinct areas. On the social side, it backs founders using AI to connect people in more personal ways.

On the media side, it supports AI-native formats and generative tools for music, gaming, sports, and fashion that lower barriers to creation and distribution. ” He described traditional platforms as ad-driven with algorithmic recommendations, noting that many users feel disillusioned compared with the original promise of connecting people.