About

Quiet capital, in public.

Brown Girl Angels is a global collective of accredited South Asian women angels, VCs, operators pooling diligence and deal flow for early-stage founders who share our community. We do not pool capital; each member decides and writes her own check.

Why we exist

South Asian women control significant capital, yet too few of us know that angel investing is a door we can walk through. We built a room where that door is already open where the women across the table already understand the kind of capital you represent, and the kind of founder worth backing.

Who's in the room

Senior operators, VCs, family office principals, and public company executives. Members include the kind of women who already write checks privately now writing them alongside each other. We are based in Toronto, the Bay Area, NYC, Vancouver, London, Hong Kong, and Austin, and we are growing one referral at a time.

How the collective works

1. Apply for membership

Membership is by-application and vetted for accreditation under the securities regulations of your jurisdiction (OSC, SEC, FCA, MAS, and equivalents).

2. Pooled diligence

Members lead and second deals together. One member runs point on diligence; others pressure test and contribute domain expertise. Every member decides independently whether to participate, and writes her own check directly into the company or, where it makes sense for the round, into an SPV she individually subscribes to. Brown Girl Angels itself does not hold funds or invest on members' behalf.

3. Closed rooms, real deal flow

Closed dinners, summits, and a private deal flow channel. Members commit to confidentiality and to bringing one referred founder per year.

Membership

One membership for the Brown Girl Angels collective. $1,001 USD per year for members who join before September 1, 2026. $1,501 USD per year thereafter. By-application, vetted for accreditation in your jurisdiction.

Apply for membership

Accredited investor

What “accredited investor” means by jurisdiction.

Brown Girl Angels is a community of accredited investors as defined by securities regulators in the jurisdictions our members write checks from. We do not provide regulatory or tax advice; the table below summarizes publicly available rules so you can self assess and confirm with your own counsel.

Jurisdiction Regulator Standard threshold to qualify (individual)
Canada Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) under NI 45-106 Net financial assets > CAD $1M (excluding primary residence), OR net assets > CAD $5M, OR net income > CAD $200K (or $300K with spouse) in each of the last two years with reasonable expectation of same
United States SEC under Rule 501 of Regulation D Net worth > USD $1M (excluding primary residence, individually or with spouse), OR income > USD $200K (or $300K with spouse) in each of the last two years, OR holding certain professional certifications (Series 7, 65, 82)
Hong Kong SFC “Professional Investor” under the Securities and Futures Ordinance Portfolio of HKD $8M (~USD $1M) or more, OR (for corporations) total assets of HKD $40M (~USD $5M) or more
Australia ASIC “Sophisticated Investor” under Corporations Act s708(8) Net assets > AUD $2.5M, OR gross income > AUD $250K in each of the last two years, certified by a qualified accountant
United Kingdom FCA “High Net Worth Individual” or “Self Certified Sophisticated Investor” under COBS 4.12 Annual income > £170K, OR net assets > £430K (excluding primary residence, pensions, life insurance) thresholds updated January 2024

If you’re not yet at these thresholds but want to build toward angel investing, our Brown Girls, Money Moves Didi membership is the room for senior South Asian women one to three years from their first check.

The Venture Membership

A room of women who do this for a living.

The Venture Membership is for women who work in venture capital and private equity associate to partner who have always wanted a room of women in these spaces. The job is solitary in ways that don’t get talked about. This is where that ends.

Angel investing is optional. Many VC members can’t write angel checks at all RIA compliance, fund conflict, or just choice. That’s fine. The lift here is knowledge transfer and experience transfer. What you do day in and day out is the asset.

Access

Angels in our collective get to ask real questions of women who do this for a living. Not panels staged for an audience the quiet questions you only ask the women already inside the room.

Representation

Your visibility on our panels, webinars, and editorial is the representation younger brown women need to see before they decide a fund is a career they’re allowed to consider. Knowledge transfer is the work.

Deal flow, shared

We share our deal flow with VC members. The brown girl founders we’re seeing at pre-seed and seed are the ones you want on your radar at Series A. The collective closes the loop.

Ecosystem signal

Your awareness of where the market is moving what’s ahead, what’s exiting, what’s real and what’s overheated is the kind of trend literacy our angels can’t source elsewhere. That’s the trade.

Curated rooms

Curated rooms to meet other brown women in venture associate to partner, emerging to established. Small, intentional gatherings where the conversation is honest and the trust is real. This is the peer network the industry doesn’t build for us.

Raising your own fund?

For VCs raising their own fund: a dedicated opportunity to present to the collective for LP investment. Our angels are accredited, fund curious, and already invested in your success. The room is already warm.

Why this matters our dual mission

Brown Girl Angels exists for two reasons. Both run through the Venture Membership.

  1. Bring more South Asian women to angel investing diversify their portfolios, shift our community’s relationship with money from scarcity to abundance, and prove that we belong on cap tables.
  2. Move the 2%. Two percent of venture capital goes to women led companies. The number for South Asian women founders is a rounding error of that. Sharing deal flow with VC members brown women writing checks at the fund level is how we start to change which founders get funded at Series A and beyond.

The Venture Membership keeps the circular economy of this collective intact. Angels learn from VCs. VCs see our deal flow. Founders meet both. The room compounds.

Who this is for

Women in venture capital, private equity, and institutional finance associate, principal, partner. Operators transitioning into venture roles. Women who already do this work and have always wanted a room of women who get it.

By-application. Accreditation vetted in your jurisdiction (OSC, SEC, FCA, MAS, and equivalents). Angel investing is optional. Knowledge transfer is the cost of entry.

Apply for the Venture Membership

Bhargavi Varma, Founder of Brown Girl Angels

The Founder

Bhargavi Varma.

Bhargavi Varma is the founder of Brown Girl Angels a global collective of South Asian women investors, venture capitalists and founders built to close the funding gap for South Asian female founders. She has written checks into over 10 South Asian female led companies and is on a mission to get more brown women to do the same shifting our culture’s relationship with money from scarcity to abundance, and building an ecosystem where we back each other for real.

Alongside BGA, she runs the sister brand Brown Girls, Money Moves a community and media brand with a podcast, a newsletter, and an event series dedicated to the money conversations South Asian women deserve to be having. It’s the first newsletter by and for South Asian women in the investment space another gesture toward inclusion.

Through thought leadership, community, and candid amplification of the lived experiences of South Asian women, Bhargavi is bridging the gap in angel investing by mobilizing South Asian women to become angel investors themselves.

She co parents a 13-year old, built all of this as a solo founder, and chose to start this particular chapter at 50.

To hear how she built Brown Girl Angels, listen to her conversation with Mallory Rowan on the Startup Canada podcast →

Or hear her in her own words on Brown Girls, Money Moves Let’s Talk Angel Investing: Your Questions, My Story →

Find her on LinkedIn and Instagram @bhargavivarma.

Bhargavi Varma, Founder Brown Girl Angels

Join the room.

Collective membership · $1,001 USD/year until September 1, 2026 · $1,501 USD/year thereafter

Venture membership · $301 USD/year

Apply for membership Apply for VC/PE membership Learn about Brown Girls Money Moves