Snap alums unveil Ghost Angels fund

A radical of 20 Snap alumni has travel unneurotic to motorboat a money called Ghost Angels to backmost the adjacent procreation of societal media. The money declined to disclose however overmuch it has raised truthful far, but says it has backed astatine slightest 5 companies and plans to deploy the remaining superior wrong the adjacent twelvemonth into astatine slightest 15 companies. 

Max Rivera, who erstwhile led planetary partnerships astatine Snap, started the money successful 2025 to formalize the already-growing Snap alumni angel-investing community. Though Rivera runs the fund, determination are astir 20 different laminitis members and investors, including a tiny fig of those inactive astatine Snap, alongside alumni similar Alexandra Levitt, who ran Snap’s firm accelerator, and Will Wu, who was a founding subordinate of Snap’s merchandise and plan team. 

“We were intentional astir the mix,” Rivera, who presently works astatine Microsoft’s AI lab, told TechCrunch, noting that Ghost Angels wanted to bring successful erstwhile elder executives alongside those earlier successful their careers, too. “That diverseness of thought and acquisition is halfway to however we measure deals and enactment founders.” 

Much has changed since helium archetypal started astatine Snap astir 10 years ago. Today, the radical gathering companies person overmuch leaner teams, portion “founders are launching accelerated and iterating successful public.” 

Image Credits:Ghost Angels

“We’re seeing experimentation of antithetic monetization models beyond ads with subscriptions, token [and] usage-based, oregon adjacent outcome-based,” helium said. “Founders are besides much successful the forefront, with founder-led GTM arsenic a cardinal pillar.” 

Naturally, the money is focused connected investing successful pre-seed to effect AI startups that are gathering successful societal media and consumer. Rivera said 1 of the biggest trends helium has noticed astir the adjacent procreation of societal media is however “social” and “media” person really split. The thought of what consumers cognize arsenic societal media contiguous is simply a level that relies heavy connected ads, with an algorithm driving contented and recommendations. 

“A batch of radical are disillusioned with that comparative to the archetypal committedness of connecting radical successful your life,” Rivera said. TechCrunch reported past year that the adjacent procreation of societal media was moving distant from gathering generalized platforms and toward niche communities. 

“On the societal side, we’re backing founders that are applying AI successful originative ways to yet present connected that archetypal promise,” Rivera continued. “On the media side, [we’re backing] AI autochthonal formats and generative originative tools crossed antithetic media types, from euphony to gaming, sports, and fashion, that are dramatically lowering the obstruction to instauration and distribution.”