Community Newsletter #65
How we use AI in our content. Underdogs, upset victories, a founder building the future of storytelling, and the VC numbers every founder needs to know.
Hello, friends! 👋
Leslie here. I’m the GP at Graham & Walker.
If you follow me on Linkedin, you’ve probably seen me complain about the explosion of sameness caused by AI-generated writing and pitch decks. That’s why I’m excited to see substack launch new features to help us tell what’s written by a human and what isn’t. We just added an AI transparency statement to this newsletter, and I thought I would expand on it here.
Every month, my team and I create resources and content for founders, investors and techies at large, in the form of blog posts, fireside chats, workshops, and a list of resources from across the ecosystem that we update weekly. All of that original, human-generated content lives on our website, Youtube channel, and on my personal Linkedin and substack, Venture With Leslie. This newsletter, Graham & Walker Headlines, is a monthly digest where we summarize everything above into one quick email with the help of AI.
In other words, original content is created by us, while AI helps with the summaries. We also use AI for research and analysis that goes into our content, and occasionally for error checking and clean up.
And now for this week’s digest!
Here's everything happening in the G&W community right now.
🔥 Our next Fireside Chat: Lauren Antonoff CEO of Life360 and Leslie discuss The Care Economy
🎙️ Recap: The State of Play for Female VCs with Paige Hendrix Buckner — the numbers are in and they’re worth knowing
⚽️ Leslie’s latest Venture with Leslie: Ode to the Underdogs — this one’s about soccer, and not about soccer at all
🚀 Founder Spotlight: Casey Lawlor and Unvale — the platform building the next generation of storytellers
💸 Grants & deadlines closing soon
🔥 Upcoming Fireside chat: The Care Economy Feat. Lauren Antonoff, CEO of Life360 (ASX: 360)
Lauren Antonoff has spent nearly 30 years building products that millions of people rely on every day — from Microsoft to GoDaddy to Life360, the world’s leading platform for family safety and connection. On August 19th, she’ll join us for a conversation on how technology is reshaping the care economy, what it takes to earn real trust, and the lessons learned leading through growth at some of the world’s most influential tech companies.
Free and open to all! Register here.
👀 Watch the Replay: The State of Play for Female VCs
feat. Paige Hendrix Buckner, CEO of All Raise
Paige Hendrix Buckner is not a sugarcoater. As CEO of All Raise, she has the data, inside knowledge, and hard-won perspective to tell it straight. And earlier this month, on a fireside with Leslie, she did.
Some nuggets from Paige:
Firms have been handing out partner titles without handing over decision-making authority, and the gap between the two is wide. Fewer than 1 in 5 people who can actually write a check at a US VC firm are women. Only six women hold a Managing Partner seat at firms managing $1B or more. And for the first time on record, the number of women- and minority-owned firms actively raising capital fell — down 12% in 2025.
But there’s a real case for optimism too. Emerging women-led funds are outperforming, the LP landscape is shifting, and $124 trillion is changing hands in ways that could reshape who writes checks next.
Read the full recap and watch the recording at the link below.
📖 Read the full recap here
🎥 Watch the recording here
⚽️ Ode to the Underdogs
Leslie grew up watching fútbol in Costa Rica — a tiny country that nobody expected much from, on a soccer field or anywhere else. That chip on the shoulder never really went away, and this World Cup brought it all back.
The latest Venture with Leslie uses this year’s tournament — and its biggest, most exciting upsets — to say something true about what it means to build outside the consensus right now. The VC landscape has never been more bifurcated. Dollars are pouring into the expected names, and everyone else seems to be clawing for air.
But underdogs have an advantage that favorites don’t: nobody sees them coming.
It’s a short read, a great one, and the kind of thing worth sending to any founder who’s been told — directly or indirectly — that they’re outclassed.
📖 Read it here
🚀 Founder Spotlight: Unvale with Casey Lawlor
One in 200 high schoolers is already publishing on Unvale.
Casey Lawlor is a three-time founder building the platform he wishes he’d had growing up — a place where the next generation of storytellers can build an audience, self-publish, and own their creative path without waiting for a gatekeeper to say yes. The vision is to lower the average age of a first-time published author or showrunner by 10 years, and make Unvale-born stories 10% of all new IP on streaming platforms. What YouTube did for video. What Roblox did for gaming. That’s the bar Casey is setting.
In a world full of founders chasing headlines, Casey is chasing something harder. "Real progress happens through painful confrontation with the truth." That's the whole philosophy.
Read Casey’s full Q&A on our blog. Inspiration to follow.
💸 Funding & Opportunities
The pipeline doesn't pause for summer. Here's what's open and worth looking into.
Forbes 30 Under 30 — The definitive list of young people changing the world. Nominations open until September 1
ODF — An intense one-week in-person experience focused on meeting collaborators, exploring ideas, and gaining conviction.
Milestone Accelaration program: A new accelerator-style program from the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center offering free coaching and paid student interns. Apply by August 3
Entrepreneurs First — No idea required. Just ambition and potential. Apply by October 15
That's a wrap for #65. Hope to see you soon on August 19 for out Fireside! 👋
Graham & Walker is an early-stage venture fund backing extraordinary founders and ideas that break the mold.