In partnership with
Namaste Brown Girl,
This week’s edition feels a little bit like a brown girl group project gone very, very right.
Proof that when brown girls get in the room together, magic happens. ✨
Companies get funded. Collaborations get launched. Ideas turn into businesses. Cold DMs turn into investments. And suddenly, the South Asian woman who used to feel like the only one in the room is sitting at a table full of women building, investing, scaling, and opening doors for each other.
From billion-dollar infrastructure plays to AI-powered startups, fertility tech, creator platforms, wellness brands, and brown girls gathering IRL across North America - the ecosystem is ecosystem-ing. 💅🏼
Welcome back to Brown Girls, Money Moves - your bi-weekly download on who’s raising, building, scaling, investing, and reminding us that brown girls were never meant to play small.
Here’s what’s inside:
🔥 Spicy money moves across AI, healthcare, beauty, and tech
🎙️ New Brown Girls, Money Moves podcast episodes are live
🤎 Brown girls building community from Austin to NYC
🍨 Desi collabs we’re obsessed with
☕️ Spicy gupshup
Pour yourself some iced chai. Let’s get into it. 👀
→ spicy money moves
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Brown girls are out here scaling companies, raising millions, disrupting industries, and collecting accolades before the rest of the internet has finished its morning matcha. This week’s wins are giving ambition, execution, and slightly intimidating levels of competence
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🧠 The brown girl contribution to your productivity stack. Menza co-founder Mariam Ahmed was nominated for the 2026 Young Founder of the Year by Founders Alliance. Backed by YC, Menza gives e-commerce and CPG brands the power of a full analytics team without hiring one. Your spreadsheet just felt threatened.
🎧 Europe’s VC queen stays undefeated. Accel partner Sonali De Rycker was inducted into the EUVC Hall of Fame after more than 25 years backing some of Europe’s most iconic tech companies, including Spotify. One of the most influential investors in Europe, and yes, she’s a brown girl.
🥤 Hormone health, but make it delicious. Marlow founder Nadia Ladak teamed up with Sweat & Tonic to launch a limited-edition cycle-supporting smoothie for Menstrual Health Month. Period care in the bathroom. Hormone support at the smoothie bar. Wellness girlies, this one’s for you.
📱 Creator economy, meet brown girl disruption. Brown Girl founder Ami Gan just launched Vylit, a new platform designed to give creators more ownership over how they share, connect, and earn online. Invite-only for now. Algorithms everywhere are trembling.
🍷 Let’s raise a glass to this brown girl. Full Glass founder Neha Kumar was named a finalist for EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2026 Greater Los Angeles. Since launching in 2023, the DTC wine portfolio company has acquired seven brands and is quickly becoming a major player in modern wine commerce.
We love celebrating brown girl wins ✨ Got a recent win, milestone, or shoutout you want us to know about? 📩 Submit your win by filling out this form and let the BGA community hype you up. 🤎
→ brown girls, money moves podcast
Season 1 of the Brown Girls, Money Moves podcast was honest, unfiltered, and unapologetically desi.
We sat down with Brown Girl Founders and the investors who bet on them. We unpacked what it really means to build, fundraise, and exit, all through a South Asian lens. 💅
And now… we’re back.
🌶️ Season 2 just launched with new guests, a new name, a new look - and the same spicy mission.
This week we dive deeper with Eshita Kabra-Davies (Founder of fashion app By Rotation) and Triin Linamgi (Founding Partner, Sie Ventures). Two women who got tired of how the game was being played and decided to rewrite the rules.
Inside this episode:
☕ The cold DM that turned into an investment
☕ Why Triin left venture capital to back the founders who kept getting passed over
☕ Personal branding without the cringe, and why it raised Ishita a funding round
☕ The unfiltered truth about raising as a brown girl founder
Pour your chai and tune in to the full episode here.
→ bga in the wild
The difference between a great idea and a funded company is often who you know - and who knows you.
Join Brown Girls in Austin founder Bhargavi Varma and Sruthi Jayadevan, content creator and founder of Tyme, for a curated gathering of South Asian women investors and founders from across Texas, hosted at The Malin East Austin.
Chai and Chaat Austin is an intimate afternoon with Brown Girl Angels for brown women who are building, investing, or just ready to be in the right room.
📍 The Malin East Austin
A workspace where the most ambitious go to work beautifully. The Malin East Austin is home to a community of professionals working in tech, venture capital, creative industries, and start-ups.
📅 12:00 PM - 4:00 PM June 5, 2026
Spots are limited and will be approved by the BGA team.
→ 30 days of brown girl founders
Last month, in honour of AAPI Month, we spotlighted over 20 incredible brown girl founders - the South Asian women building businesses, raising capital, breaking rules, and making major money moves.
At Brown Girl Angels, celebrating brown girls building empires feels like the truest way to honour AAPI Month. 🤎
Looking for a dose of inspo? Check out some of the brown girl stories we featured.
✨ At 12 she built a clothing brand in Hong Kong. At Columbia she interned at 15 startups. On Wall Street she watched a woman of colour with 50k daily users struggle to raise while a man with zero traction raised $6M. Watch her story.
🚀 She moved from India to the US at 20 with $200. MIT PhD. NASA. And then she built a flying boat. Find out more.
👗 She was on her honeymoon in Rajasthan - the land her family came from - when she looked around and felt sick. Textile waste. Everywhere. Mountains of discarded fashion. In the very place that inspired so much of it. She came home and built a company. Listen to this week’s BGMM podcast to learn more about her journey.
→gupshup
🍨 Malai x Fable & Mane served up ice cream, Ayurvedic haircare, and sensory overload in the best way possible.
🤎 Brown girls, imagine a room where you don’t have to shrink yourself to fit in. Less gatekeeping auntie energy, more didis putting your name in rooms that matter. Something spicy is brewing.
→spread the love
💼Take your seat at the table. See what we’re up to in 2026.
💰 Your new home for brown girls building wealth, writing checks, and changing who gets funded and who gets to fund. Join our Substack.
🙋🏾♀️We love celebrating brown girl founders who are building bold, brilliant, and inspiring companies. Got something in the works or looking to raise soon? We’d love to hear from you.
🫱🏽🫲🏾If you’re looking to get your brand, product or service in front of a community of South Asian women who love to uplift, invest, and support each other—this is your sign. Reach out to learn more about our sponsored content opportunities
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