SAN FRANCISCO — Max Rivera launched Ghost Angels in 2025, a San Francisco-based angel investment group composed of Snap alumni focused on backing pre-seed to seed AI startups in social media and consumer technology. The group has already invested in at least five companies and plans to back at least 15 more within the next year.

Ghost Angels includes approximately 20 founder members and investors, some of whom are currently employed at Snap. The group formalizes what had been an informal network of angel investors among Snap’s former employees. Rivera, who previously led global partnerships at Snap and now works in Microsoft’s AI division, said the group was deliberate in its composition. “We were intentional about the mix.” He noted that Ghost Angels wanted to bring in former senior executives alongside those earlier in their careers. “That diversity of thought and experience is core to how we evaluate deals and support founders.”

The fund focuses on startups applying artificial intelligence to renew the original promise of social connection, which Rivera said has been eroded by today’s ad-driven, algorithmically curated platforms. “Many people are disillusioned with current social media platforms’ reliance on ads and algorithm-driven content, compared to the original promise of connecting people in real life.” He added that in the current generation of platforms, “social” and “media” have effectively split.

Rivera observed that founders are now launching products faster and iterating publicly, often adopting non-traditional monetization models. “We’re seeing experimentation of different monetization models beyond ads with subscriptions, token [and] usage-based, or even outcome-based.” He said founders are also more in the forefront, with founder-led GTM as a key pillar.

Ghost Angels is also investing in AI-native media formats and generative creative tools in music, gaming, sports, and fashion that lower barriers to creation and distribution. The group includes notable Snap alumni such as Alexandra Levitt, who ran Snap’s corporate accelerator, and Will Wu, a founding member of Snap’s product and design team.

Molly DeWolf Swenson, co-founder and CEO of Mozi—a company in Ghost Angels’ portfolio—said the Snap alumni network offers unique insight for founders in this space. “The Snap alumni network is full of brilliant, influential people who inherently understand the problem space I’m playing in.” Ghost Angels declined to disclose how much capital it has raised.