A bunch of 20 Snap alumni has come collectively to launch a fund referred to as Ghost Angels to again the subsequent technology of social media. The fund declined to reveal how a lot it has raised to this point, however says it has backed at the very least 5 corporations and plans to deploy the remaining capital inside the subsequent yr into at the very least 15 corporations.
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 group. 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 in regards to the combine,” Rivera, who at the moment works at Microsoft’s AI lab, informed 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 almost 10 years in the past. Right now, the folks constructing corporations have a lot leaner groups, whereas “founders are launching quick and iterating in public.”
“We’re seeing experimentation of various monetization fashions past adverts with subscriptions, token [and] usage-based, and even outcome-based,” he mentioned. “Founders are additionally extra within the forefront, with founder-led GTM as a key pillar.”
Naturally, the fund is concentrated on investing in pre-seed to seed AI startups which can be constructing in social media and shopper. Rivera mentioned one of many greatest tendencies he has seen in regards to the subsequent technology of social media is how “social” and “media” have really break up. The thought of what shoppers know as social media right now is a platform that depends closely on adverts, 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 mentioned. TechCrunch reported last year that the subsequent technology of social media was transferring away from constructing generalized platforms and towards area of interest communities.
“On the social aspect, we’re backing founders which can be making use of AI in inventive methods to lastly ship on that unique promise,” Rivera continued. “On the media aspect, [we’re backing] AI native codecs and generative inventive instruments throughout completely different media sorts, from music to gaming, sports activities, and style, which can be dramatically decreasing the barrier to creation and distribution.”
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