Online jewellery retailer BlueStone has raised Rs 200 crore ($29.7 million) in a Series D round of funding led by IIFL Holdings Ltd and existing investor Accel Partners with participation from new investor RB Investments and existing investors Kalaari Capital and IvyCap Ventures.
The company, which was founded by Gaurav Singh Kushwaha (CEO) and Vidya Nataraj in 2011, intends to grow its revenue to Rs 1,000 crore by 2018 (from the current Rs 250 crore) and will use the funds to grow its merchandise. It plans to offer a total of 30,000 jewelry designs in the next 3 years from the current 5,000. In September last year, BlueStone appointed Arvind Singhal as its COO. Singhal previously worked as the CEO of online cab aggregator TaxiForSure, which was acquired by Ola in March 2015 for $200 million.
Previous BlueStone funding
Exactly a year ago, BlueStone raised $16 million in a round of funding from Ivy Capital and Dragoneer with participation from Accel Partners, Kalaari Capital and Saama Capital, for marketing and expand its team of 150 to 250 staffers. It had previously raised an undisclosed amount from Ratan Tata in September 2014, a $10 million investment in March 2014 from Kalaari Capital, Accel Partners and Saama Capital and $5 million from Accel Partners and Meena Ganesh in January 2012.
Developments in the online jewelry sector in India:
– Last week, we reported that Titan, which had announced that it would acquire a majority stake in CaratLane, has bought 62% in the company for Rs 357.24 crore. Titan also acquired over 19 million shares in the all cash deal.
– In May, Myntra tied up with Titan-owned Tanishq to sell jewelry online. Myntra also expected to generate revenues of Rs 500 crore over the next 3 years from its jewelry section.
– In January, Melorra, a new online jewellery retailer, raised seed funding worth $5 million from Lightbox Venture’s second fund.
– Online jewellery store Voylla raised $15 million from Peepul Capital in October last year. In October 2014, the company had announced its plans to open 10 brick and mortar stores across the country by the end of 2014.
– Others competitors include Gitanjali Group’s Gitanjalishop.com (opened in partnership with Times Internet’s Indiatimes Shopping), Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Jabond and Craftsvilla, all of which have jewelry sections on their portals.
