September 12 2026
Asha Jadeja Motwani: From Ahmedabad girl to an influential Indian-American voice
(Sep 12, 2026) From an Ahmedabad girl to the early Google ecosystem, Silicon Valley and Washington’s Republican circles, Asha Jadeja Motwani’s journey has spanned more than three decades of venture capital, philanthropy, entrepreneurship and India-US engagement. Through her investment work, she has been involved with more than 200 technology startups and built platforms supporting innovators and entrepreneurs across continents. Adding another honour to a distinguished career, Forbes recently named her to its 50 Over 50 list in the Impact category.
Asha’s journey began in Ahmedabad, where she grew up and studied at CEPT University. She later travelled to the United States for graduate studies, first pursuing urban planning at the University of Southern California and later completing a master’s in civil engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
Her move to America placed her at the intersection of academia, technology and entrepreneurship at a time when Silicon Valley was beginning to transform the global technology landscape.
Looking back at what she carried with her from Ahmedabad, values of home have remained important throughout her life. “The importance of friendships and family throughout life has stayed with me the most strongly,” she shares with The Global Indian.
Asha Jadeja Motwani with Donald Trump. A prominent donor of Trump’s political operation, she has contributed more than $5 million to MAGA Inc.
Meeting Rajeev Motwani and witnessing Google’s story unfold
At Berkeley, she met Rajeev Motwani, an IIT Kanpur graduate pursuing a doctorate in computer science. They married in 1990. Rajeev went on to become a Stanford computer science professor and an influential mentor to Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google.
Through Rajeev’s academic career, Asha found herself close to a remarkable period in Silicon Valley’s history. But while Rajeev’s academic contributions became part of Google’s origin story, Asha was developing her own interests in technology, entrepreneurship and investment.
Rajeev’s research brought him into close contact with Page and Brin when they were Stanford students. He was a co-author with them on an influential early paper on PageRank, the algorithm that became central to Google’s search technology.
Asha therefore had an unusually close view of the company’s beginnings, when Google was still a Stanford-based research project rather than the global technology company it would become. She and Rajeev became early Google stakeholders, giving them a connection to the company well before its public listing.
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For Asha, those early years offered a first-hand view of how ideas emerging from universities could develop into companies with global impact. Asked what she remembers most vividly about that period, she recalls the ambition behind the idea that would eventually reshape the internet.
What I remember most vividly is the dream of the founders, Larry and Sergey, and Rajeev, of bringing all the information of the world to everyone in the world.
Asha Jadeja Motwani
That experience would become an important foundation for the investment and entrepreneurship work she pursued in the years that followed.
Turning experience into venture investing
Around 2000, Asha and Rajeev formalised their investment activities through Dot Edu Ventures, focusing on promising researchers, professors, postdoctoral scholars and PhD students in computer science and electrical engineering.
The approach was closely connected to the academic and technology networks they had developed. Researchers and entrepreneurs working on emerging technologies could find not only capital but also guidance and connections through the network around them.
Over the years, Asha and Rajeev backed roughly 200 technology startups, with investments associated with companies including Google, PayPal, Pinterest, AppDynamics and Meraki.
For Asha, venture capital became more than an investment activity. It gave her an opportunity to identify promising people early and help connect them with the resources and networks needed to develop their ideas.
Asked what she looks for in a founder before deciding to invest, Asha points to qualities that go beyond a business plan or technical idea. “I look for a risk-taking, courageous personality and a willingness to break rules,” she says. That philosophy would later become central to much of her philanthropic and institution-building work.
Turning loss into a legacy of impact
Rajeev’s unexpected death in 2009 marked a profound turning point in Asha’s life.
In the years that followed, she channelled her energy into creating platforms that would continue supporting entrepreneurs, innovators and emerging leaders. In 2012, she founded the Motwani Jadeja Foundation, now the Motwani Jadeja Family Foundation.
One of its flagship initiatives, the Rajeev Circle Fellowship, has supported more than 150 fellows, connecting emerging leaders with organisations and platforms including TED, INK and the Acumen Fund. Fellows have also been showcased at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the UN General Assembly and CES.
For Asha, the work represented a natural extension of the investment philosophy she had developed in Silicon Valley: find talented people, give them opportunities and connect them to networks that can help their ideas grow.
Bringing the maker movement to India
Asha’s work increasingly turned towards India and the potential of technology to expand opportunities for young people and grassroots innovators.
In 2013, she launched MakerFest, a platform for makers, inventors and grassroots innovators. The initiative subsequently expanded beyond India, including to Africa and Brazil.
She also helped establish a network of FabLabs in India, giving students and innovators access to digital fabrication and prototyping tools. In Ahmedabad, she worked with education researcher Sugata Mitra on an early School in the Cloud initiative, exploring new approaches to learning and giving young people greater access to technology and knowledge.
These initiatives reflected a recurring theme in Asha’s work which revolves around the idea that innovation should be accessible to people who have ideas and the determination to build, regardless of where they come from.
Backing entrepreneurs and women across borders
Her focus on entrepreneurship continued through programmes supporting innovators in India and beyond. In 2020, Asha pledged a $1 million seed fund for a startup accelerator linked to the Indian Institutes of Technology, extending her support for technology-driven entrepreneurship into India’s premier engineering ecosystem.
In 2023, she launched the Motwani Women Entrepreneurs Fellowship with TiE Global, supporting women entrepreneurs from India, the Middle East and Africa.
The fellowship builds on Asha’s broader approach to entrepreneurship: combining financial support with mentorship, networks and access to opportunities that can help founders grow. Her investment and philanthropic interests have increasingly expanded across sectors, including technology, artificial intelligence, robotics and emerging innovation ecosystems.
Building an India-Israel innovation bridge
Asha’s institution-building has also expanded into international innovation partnerships. In December 2024, she launched the India-Israel Innovation Corridor, with DRISHTI as a key programme. The initiative seeks to connect Israeli technology companies with India’s growing innovation ecosystem.
Its first cohort, hosted at T-Hub in Hyderabad, focused on Israeli companies in areas including defence, artificial intelligence and robotics that already had working products and customers.
A $5 million commitment to India-US dialogue
Her work on India-US relations took another institutional step in 2025. Asha and the Motwani Jadeja Family Foundation endowed the Motwani Jadeja Institute for American Studies at O.P. Jindal Global University with $5 million. The institute is designed to promote research, teaching, policy engagement and academic exchange around the United States while deepening understanding of India-US relations.
The institute is named in honour of Rajeev, but its creation also reflects Asha’s own growing interest in the relationship between the two countries.
It represents another evolution in her work, from investing in individual startups to creating institutions that can contribute to education, research and long-term dialogue between India and the United States.
Asha with Usha Vance, Second Lady of the United States
From Silicon Valley to Washington
Asha’s public engagement has in recent years extended beyond technology and philanthropy into American politics and policy.
She has emerged as one of the prominent Indian-American donors to Donald Trump’s political operation, with federal campaign-finance filings showing that her contributions to MAGA Inc., the super PAC supporting Trump, exceeded $5 million during the current election cycle.
Her political engagement has added another dimension to a career that has increasingly extended beyond Silicon Valley into broader India-US conversations.
Asha has spoken publicly about issues affecting Indian professionals and entrepreneurs in the United States. She has also encouraged greater engagement between Indian leaders and the Trump administration during periods of tension over tariffs and trade.
For Asha, this represents another way of contributing to the India-US relationship. Her perspective now reaches beyond venture capital and entrepreneurship into conversations around technology, immigration, trade and the ties between the two countries.
Asked where she believes the Indian-American community can make a bigger difference, Asha sees its role in connecting the two countries while contributing to both.
I believe the Indian-American community can make a bigger difference by taking America global and taking India global.
Asha Jadeja Motwani
Her America First perspective
Asha’s political engagement has also included support for America First policies, a position that has attracted differing views within the Indian-American community.
For her, however, her political priorities are rooted in her life and work in the United States. Asked how she sees this position alongside her long-standing efforts to strengthen connections between India and the US, she says, “My karmabhoomi is America. My ideas and actions are for America First.”
Her statement reflects how she distinguishes between her primary civic commitment to the country where she has built her life and career and her continuing interest in strengthening ties between India and the United States.
That perspective sits alongside her work with entrepreneurs, universities, innovators and institutions across both countries, where she continues to build connections between the two ecosystems.
Asha with JD Vance, Vice President of the United States
A journey still unfolding
Her journey has taken her from Ahmedabad to American universities, Silicon Valley’s venture capital world and grassroots innovation in India, and increasingly into the broader India-US conversation.
Along the way, Asha has backed hundreds of startups, created platforms for emerging talent, supported makers and women entrepreneurs, built institutions for education and scholarship, and forged connections between innovation ecosystems across countries.
Asha’s career reflects the expanding role of the Indian-American community, connecting technology, entrepreneurship, philanthropy and ideas across two countries while creating opportunities for the next generation.
Her inclusion in Forbes’ 2026 50 Over 50 list is the latest honour in a distinguished career, but also another marker in a journey that continues to evolve.
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