The Woman Who Saved Activision's $69B Deal Just Raised $40M to Prove 'Storytelling is Alpha'

In December 2025, a securities filing revealed something unusual: one of tech's most respected communications strategists had raised $40 million for a venture capital fund.

Her name is Lulu Cheng Meservey. And her investment thesis can be summarized in three words: "Storytelling is alpha."

From Crisis War Room to Board Room

Before we talk about where Lulu is going, we need to understand where she's been.

From October 2022 to January 2024, Meservey served as Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Chief Communications Officer at Activision Blizzard. She joined during one of the most contentious corporate battles in history: Microsoft's proposed $69 billion acquisition of the gaming giant.

Regulators around the world were skeptical. The FTC sued to block the deal. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority initially rejected it. Sony was lobbying hard against it.

Meservey's job was to shape the narrative. And she did. The deal closed.

Before Activision, she was Vice President of Communications at Substack, where she helped shape the voice of one of the most influential platforms in the creator economy. Even earlier, she co-founded TrailRunner International, a global strategic communications firm.

Today, she sits on the board of Shopify, one of the most important e-commerce companies in the world.

The Rostra manifesto

In between all of this, Meservey founded Rostra, an advisory firm that works with founders on what she calls "founder-led communications."

The Rostra manifesto opens with a quote: "If you want something good, get it from yourself."

The philosophy is direct: founders must craft and tell their own stories, without being dependent on intermediaries. This doesn't mean isolating yourself. It means maintaining narrative control while accepting amplification support.

The manifesto argues that traditional corporate communications have become obsolete. Nothing meaningful, it contends, can be communicated by a faceless committee. The most effective spokesperson is "the person who holds the secret knowledge upon which the enterprise is built."

In other words: the founder.

Why She Moved From Advising to Investing

When Axios broke the news of her $40 million fund, Meservey explained her thinking simply: "Storytelling is alpha."

She elaborated: "Investing complements Rostra's work because narrative and capital both compound."

Think about that for a moment. Narrative and capital both compound.

The companies that tell their stories well attract better talent, which builds better products, which creates more stories to tell. The companies that stay silent or depend on intermediaries lose ground with every news cycle.

According to the reporting, the fund is structured to invest at the earliest stages, when positioning, messaging, and market trust are still being formed. This is the moment when storytelling matters most, when a founder's ability to articulate their vision can mean the difference between a successful fundraise and a failed one.

The competitive advantage of going direct

The Rostra manifesto makes a compelling case: communication skill-building yields competitive advantages in recruiting, fundraising, and sales.

Let's break that down.

Recruiting: The best candidates have options. They choose companies with missions they believe in, led by founders they trust. Founders who can communicate directly build that trust faster.

Fundraising: Investors are pattern-matching constantly. Founders who can articulate their vision clearly, without needing a PR handler to translate, signal competence and conviction.

Sales: Enterprise deals are won by people who can explain complex products simply. Founders who practice direct communication get better at this with every conversation.

Founders willing to communicate directly gain, in Rostra's words, "a massive edge" across all these critical functions.

From gatekeeper to creator

There's something poetic about Meservey's career arc.

She started as a gatekeeper, helping founders navigate the media landscape and manage their relationships with journalists. She was the intermediary.

Now she's betting $40 million that the intermediary model is obsolete.

The shift reflects a broader change in how information flows. When Meservey started her career, getting coverage in The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times was the gold standard. Founders needed people like her to make those connections.

Today, a founder can post on LinkedIn and reach more of their target audience than a Journal article would. They can start a newsletter and build a direct relationship with customers, investors, and recruits. They can record a podcast and become a thought leader without ever talking to a journalist.

The gatekeepers haven't disappeared. But they're no longer required.

What Founders Should Take Away

If one of the smartest communications strategists in tech is betting her career on founder-led storytelling, what should founders learn?

Start now. Narrative compounds. The earlier you start building your communication skills, the more advantage you'll have.

Don't outsource your voice. Agencies and PR firms can amplify your message, but they can't create it. The founder must be the source.

Think of communication as a core skill, not a nice-to-have. Just like you'd invest in engineering or sales, invest in your ability to tell your story.

Go where your audience is. For most B2B founders, that's LinkedIn. Build there relentlessly.

Lulu has seen the future of corporate communications from every angle: as an advisor, as an executive, as a board member, and now as an investor. Her conclusion is the same from every vantage point: the founders who can tell their own stories will win.

Storytelling is alpha.

For more on going direct, read how Marc Andreessen built a16z's media empire. And here are 10 startup founders to follow on LinkedIn who are putting this into practice.