In partnership with
Namaste Brown Girl,
This week reminded us that every big brown girl win starts with someone believing in them.
An investor who writes the first check. A founder who bets on herself before anyone else does. A little girl restocking newspapers who one day ends up in their pages.
This week, we watched brown girls land on power lists, raise fresh capital, build companies solving problems no one else was paying attention to, and keep proving that representation isn't just about who's on stage. It's about who's writing the cheques, making the decisions, and opening the next door.
Turns out betting on brown girls has a pretty incredible track record. 💅🏽
Welcome back to Brown Girls, Money Moves — your bi-weekly download on who's raising, building, investing, scaling, and making sure the next generation of South Asian women starts with a few more believers in their corner.
Here's what's inside:
🔥 Brown girls landing on power lists, raising fresh funding, and making national headlines
🎙️ A new podcast episode on building before you're "ready"
🤎 Brown Girl Angels welcomes Tydra Labs to the portfolio
🗽 A look back at our NYC Tech Week event
☕️ Fresh gupshup for the group chat
Grab your chai. We've got some catching up to do. ☕️
→ spicy money moves
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Brown girls are collecting power lists, primetime appearances, fresh funding, and proving (again) that we're not waiting for a seat at the table. Here are this week's spiciest money moves.
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🧘 Lion Pose just had its national TV moment. Madhu Punjabi's wellness brand landed on Live with Kelly and Mark, proving your morning routine might officially be ready for primetime.
💸 Turns out spotting billion-dollar founders is a pretty good party trick. BBG Ventures' Nisha Dua and Array Ventures' Shruti Gandhi landed on Business Insider's 2026 Seed 40, recognizing the women spotting tomorrow's breakout founders before the rest of the market catches on. (Psst. check out our latest podcast epi with Nisha)
👑 Another year, another power list. Goldman Sachs partner Meena Flynn is back on Fortune's Most Powerful Women list, earning recognition alongside some of the biggest names shaping global business. Casual. Link: Fortune Most Powerful Women 2026
🛍️ Your next purchase might start with a DM. Former Meta leaders Misbah and Farah Uraizee just raised a $30M Series A for Nectar Agent, led by Menlo Ventures and its Anthology Fund with Anthropic, to build AI-powered shopping agents for brands.
📰 The little girl who helped restock copies of The New York Times at her family's shop is now filling its pages. Just weeks after the premiere of Hosted by Nabela, Bangladeshi-American creator Nabela Noor celebrated a full-circle moment with a feature in the paper she once shelved. Talk about manifesting the byline.
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.
🌶️ Season 2 is back with a new look, new guests, and the same spicy mission.
Episode 6 is for every brown girl who's ever been told she needs another degree, another credential, or another line on her résumé before she's "ready" to build. 👀
Priyanka Jain turned her own health struggles into Evvy, a company transforming how we understand women's health. In this episode, she's joined by one of her earliest believers, investor Nisha Dua, to unpack what it really takes to build a category-defining company.
Inside the episode:
☕ Why 60% of women's health questions are answered incorrectly by AI, and what Priyanka built to fix it
☕ What investors actually notice about a founder (hint: it isn't the pitch deck)
☕ How your lived experience can become your biggest competitive advantage
☕ The women's health data gap that should make every woman furious, and what Equal Research Day is doing about it
☕ Why Nisha believes the next generation of venture-backed founders will look very different from the last
Pour your chai and tune in to the full episode here.
→ bga portfolio news
📣 We’re thrilled to announce Brown Girl Angels’ investment in Tydra Labs, as part of their $1.2M pre-seed raise led by Spring Impact Capital.
Co-founded by brown girl founder Jaiya Varshney, Tydra Labs is a Vancouver-based biomaterials startup transforming waste into high-performance, chitin-based materials with applications across packaging, cosmetics, food, and agriculture.
✨This is exactly the kind of future-forward innovation we believe in.
At Brown Girl Angels, we back women building bold companies, challenging outdated systems, and reshaping what leadership, capital, and innovation can look like. Jaiya and the Tydra team are proving that sustainability and scalability can go hand in hand, and that the future of materials is renewable.
Here’s to investing in brown girl founders building the world we actually want to live in. 🤎
🎉Welcome to the BGA family Tydra Labs!
Want to learn how to invest in brown girl founders like Jaiya? Learn more about the BGA Collective and how we’re changing who gets to fund and who gets funded.
→ nyc tech week
Brown Girls in NYC, you showed up. On June 3rd, we brought From Pitch to Check to the BG Clubhouse alongside NineF Angels and BGA portfolio company Brown Girl Mag.
🎤 Raeva Sayed of Tavia Health and Maya Bakhai of Spice Capital joined our founder Bhargavi Varma for deep dive on conviction, risk, and what it actually takes to go from a pitch to getting a check.
Here's to creating more spaces where South Asian women can connect, champion each other, and build what's next. 🤎
This was just one out of five events we hosted in June.
Want an invite to the next one? Make sure you’re following us.
→gupshup
🚪 The confidence coach helping brown girls stop getting in their own way.
🌶️ This desi snack just beat out the competition. Bland is officially banned.
🍦 Desi ice cream is having its main character moment.
🤎 Kitchener-Waterloo 🇨🇦 you're officially invited to dinner.
→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
The Drink Everyone’s Reaching For 🍸✨
This season, I’m reaching for something different: Vesper by Pique.
Pique is known for blending ancient botanicals with modern science to create elevated wellness essentials. Vesper might be my favorite yet. It’s a non-alcoholic, adaptogenic aperitif that delivers the relaxed, social glow of a cocktail. Without alcohol or the next-day fog.
It’s what I pour when I want something special in my glass on a bright spring evening. Each sip feels celebratory and uplifting. Relaxed body. Clear mind. No haze. No sleep disruption.
Crafted with L-theanine, lemon balm, gentian root, damiana, and elderflower, Vesper is sparkling, tart, and beautifully herbaceous.
If you’re ready for a new kind of happy hour, try Vesper here. 🌿✨
If you missed our poll last time, let us know now what you’re interested in!