No source ranks consumer-app angels, so this list is in no particular order: Scott Belsky, Mark Cuban, Ryan Hoover, Gokul Rajaram, Naval Ravikant and Hunter Walk. Four of them appear in Lenny's Newsletter's December 2024 ranking of the most active US angels, and the other two run seed funds that back consumer startups. Every fact links to its source.
How was this list built?
The starting point is Lenny's Newsletter, which worked with Crunchbase in December 2024 to rank US angels by activity over five years and during 2024, and which calls its numbers directional because many deals are never announced. The ranking counts deals, not results. Where an investor runs a fund or publishes a page, that page is used for focus and check size, and each number is credited to whoever published it.
Lenny's put Sahin Boydas, the author of this site, first for 2024. He is left out of the profiles below, which rest on other investors' public pages.
Who are the angels behind consumer apps?
Scott Belsky
Lenny's ranks him fourth over five years, describes him as investing mainly in consumer products, and notes he is a former Adobe Creative Cloud product chief and the co-founder of Behance. His own site calls him a founder, author, product leader and seed investor. His NFX Signal profile lists him as a partner at A24 since 2025, with checks of $50,000 to $500,000, a $100,000 sweet spot, and appearances on its consumer internet, direct-to-consumer, marketplace and social commerce lists.
Mark Cuban
Lenny's ranks him eighth over five years and says he has the broadest spread of sectors, across web3, direct-to-consumer, hardware, consumer, B2B software, basketball teams and film. That reads as a generalist rather than a consumer specialist.
Ryan Hoover
Hoover founded Product Hunt and now runs Weekend Fund, which describes itself as an early-stage fund with more than 400 founder and operator LPs. It writes $250,000 to $500,000 checks, invests "from weird consumer to boring B2B," and lists Deel, Function Health, MoonPay and Voiceflow in its portfolio. It is a fund with outside LPs, not a solo angel.
Gokul Rajaram
Lenny's ranks him second over five years and calls him a generalist across B2B, B2C, fintech, infrastructure and AI, with earlier senior operating roles at Google, Facebook, Square and DoorDash. His NFX Signal profile shows checks of $25,000 to $1 million with a $50,000 sweet spot, and lists him on its consumer internet and e-commerce rankings among many others.
Naval Ravikant
Lenny's ranks him seventh over five years, notes that he co-founded AngelList, and says his investing is mostly consumer alongside Belsky. His NFX Signal profile shows checks of $100,000 to $5 million with a $1.5 million sweet spot, and puts him on its social networks and media and content lists.
Hunter Walk
Walk co-founded Homebrew with Satya Patel. Homebrew says it invests mostly at pre-seed and seed, writes most checks between $100,000 and $500,000, and looks for problems that are large, urgent and valuable. A 2013 TechCrunch report on Homebrew's launch says Walk had been making angel investments before the fund, co-investing with Patel in companies such as Spredfast, and that the fund's thesis included direct-to-consumer businesses and peer and collaborative economies.
What do these investors say they look for?
Most of the pages above publish little about method, so the clearest statements come from the two funds. Homebrew lists three tests: conviction, meaning founders with a key insight, a personal stake in the problem and a clear vision; commitment, meaning willingness to make sacrifices; and problems that are large, urgent and valuable. It also says about 90 percent of its investments are pre-seed or seed checks. Weekend Fund's site states no criteria beyond its range, "from weird consumer to boring B2B", and an invitation to teams building something big. Lenny's says Belsky and Ravikant invest mainly in consumer products, and Belsky's NFX Signal profile places him on its consumer internet and direct-to-consumer lists.
None of these sources publishes a retention, growth or revenue bar that a consumer app must clear.
How do their check sizes compare?
The published ranges overlap but differ in scale. NFX Signal shows Rajaram at $25,000 to $1 million with a $50,000 sweet spot, Belsky at $50,000 to $500,000 with a $100,000 sweet spot, and Ravikant at $100,000 to $5 million with a $1.5 million sweet spot. The two funds state narrower bands: Homebrew's typical early check is $100,000 to $500,000 and Weekend Fund's is $250,000 to $500,000. Weekend Fund is a fund with outside LPs rather than a solo angel, so its range is a fund check, not a personal one.
Where to read next
For the background on what the stage looks like from the founder's side, read angel investing in consumer social apps, pre-seed versus seed funding and what angel investors look for in founders. To find investors beyond this list, how to find angel investors for your startup covers the routes, and how much angel investors invest explains typical checks. More lists are in the angel investing section.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q:How much do consumer-app angels invest?
The published ranges differ by investor. NFX Signal shows $25,000 to $1 million for Rajaram, $50,000 to $500,000 for Belsky and $100,000 to $5 million for Ravikant. Homebrew states most of its checks are $100,000 to $500,000, and Weekend Fund states $250,000 to $500,000.
Q:Does the Lenny's ranking measure who is best?
No. It ranks investors by how many deals they did, using Crunchbase data that misses unannounced deals. It says nothing about returns or about which investors help founders most.
Q:Why are fund managers on a list of angels?
Hoover and Walk are included because they invest in consumer startups at the earliest stages and publish their ranges, and both have described their activity in public. Walk made angel investments before founding Homebrew, according to TechCrunch, while Weekend Fund is a fund with outside LPs. The individual angels on the list are Belsky, Cuban, Rajaram and Ravikant.
Q:Which stages do these investors back?
Mostly the earliest ones. NFX Signal lists Belsky from pre-seed to Series A and Rajaram from pre-seed to Series B, and Homebrew says it invests mostly at pre-seed and seed.