Twenty former Snap employees have started an angel fund aimed at supporting the next wave of social media innovation. They believe

      **TL;DR**: Twenty alumni from Snap have established Ghost Angels, an angel fund supporting AI startups that aim to move beyond the ad-centric social media framework. The fund has already made five investments and intends to fund 15 additional companies soon.

      A group of twenty former Snap employees has initiated Ghost Angels, an angel fund aimed at nurturing the upcoming wave of social media and consumer-focused AI startups. The fund has invested in at least five businesses and has plans to allocate the remaining capital to at least 15 more over the coming year. The total size of the fund has not been disclosed.

      Max Rivera, who previously led global partnerships at Snap, founded the fund in 2025 to formalize an expanding community of alumni investors. He now works in Microsoft’s AI division. The founding members, approximately 20 in total, include Alexandra Levitt, who previously managed Snap’s corporate accelerator, and Will Wu, a founding member of Snap’s product and design team.

      Rivera noted to TechCrunch, “We were deliberate about the diversity in our team. This variety of thought and experience is fundamental to how we assess deals and assist founders.” The membership consists of former senior leaders and those earlier in their careers, along with a few still employed at Snap.

      Ghost Angels targets investments in the pre-seed to seed stage of AI startups in the realms of social media and consumer engagement. Rivera has observed a significant trend where “social” and “media” are diverging into separate entities.

      Currently, what consumers recognize as social media is focused on ads, with algorithms dictating content and recommendations. Rivera mentioned that many are disappointed with this reality compared to the original idea of fostering personal connections. The new generation is shifting towards more specialized communities.

      Ghost Angels is investing in both aspects of this separation. On the social side, founders are leveraging AI to fulfill the original vision of connecting people. On the media side, AI-driven formats and generative creative tools are making it easier to create and share content in areas like music, gaming, sports, and fashion.

      Rivera has noticed a shift in how today’s founders operate compared to when he joined Snap nearly ten years ago. Teams tend to be smaller, and founders are launching quickly and iterating publicly. Revenue models are expanding beyond advertising to include subscriptions, token models, usage-based pricing, and outcome-based revenue.

      Meta's recent introduction of Forum illustrates how established companies recognize this shift. Forum is a standalone app derived from Facebook Groups, aimed at capturing the community discussion space that Reddit currently dominates. Meta’s decision to separate Groups into a distinct app reinforces Ghost Angels' belief that niche community tools represent the next evolution.

      Molly DeWolf Swenson, co-founder and CEO of portfolio company Mozi, remarked that the “Snap alumni network is filled with brilliant, influential individuals who inherently comprehend the challenges I’m addressing.” The fund offers founders not just financial support but also invaluable expertise from those who played a role in creating one of the defining social platforms of the last decade.

      The broader startup ecosystem is increasingly favoring AI-driven approaches that create new categories rather than merely optimizing existing ones. For instance, Peec AI achieved $10 million in annual recurring revenue in just six months by focusing on generative engine optimization, a field that scarcely existed before ChatGPT transformed search methodologies. Ghost Angels believes the same principles hold true for social platforms: the successful ones will be designed for AI-centric interactions instead of simply incorporating AI features retroactively.

      The Snap alumni network ranks among the most dynamic in consumer technology. Snapchat's culture of experimentation, its investment in ephemeral content, early commitment to augmented reality, and its openness to developing initially unconventional products cultivated a generation of innovators who now perceive the emergence of the next cycle. Ghost Angels represents a means to leverage that conviction effectively.