D2C Silver Jewellery Startup GIVA Secures $4.8 Mn Debt Funding From Alteria Capital

D2C silver jewellery startup GIVA has raised INR 40 Cr ($4.8 Mn) debt funding from venture debt firm Alteria Capital.

GIVA plans to use the capital for inventory management and expanding its offline presence in India, Ishendra Agarwal, cofounder of GIVA, told Inc42. 

Excluding the current fundraising, GIVA secured over INR 130 Cr equity funding to date. 

Agarwal, Nikita Prasa and Sachin Shetty, founded GIVA in 2019, with the aim to help women buy budget-friendly fine jewellery within a price range of INR 1000 to INR 20,000. 

“All fine jewellery brands in India including CaratLane, Melorra, Tanishq and BlueStone sell jewellery starting from 20K-25K. However, GIVA offers jewellery for their day-to-day wear, offices and other occasions between 1K and 20K,” said Agarwal. 

GIVA sells silver, oxidised silver, gold-coated and rose gold-coated jewellery to consumers across India, via its website, retail outlets and ecommerce marketplaces. The startup mainly targets women between the age group of 24 and 45 years.

Explaining the jewellery-making process, Agarwal said that GIVA’s in-house team and a community of influencers create jewellery designs, which are shared with third-party manufacturers. After receiving these jewelleries from manufacturers, the startup carries quality-check to ensure the purity of the metal, correct stone placement, tarnishing and scratching.

The startup claims to be selling 92.5% silver jewellery to consumers and offering a six-month warranty on the jewellery breakage.

GIVA counts Aditya Birla Group, India Quotient, Sixth Sense Ventures, A91 Ventures, Founder Bank Capital, Anicut Angel Fund, founders of ShareChat and First Cheque as its backers. 

Betting On Influencer Marketing 

To market products and build customers’ trust, GIVA mostly creates influencer marketing campaigns, where influencers write and post about its jewellery. It also utilises performance marketing on Facebook and Google to attract consumers toward the brand.

“We do a lot of influencer campaigns, where 4K+ influencers post about GIVA, write about the brand and collect feedback about it on a monthly basis. We have also partnered with mega influencers that endorse our brand,” Agarwal shared.  

Additionally, the Bengaluru-based startup has roped in Anushka Sharma and Shruti Hassan as brand ambassadors. 

Sharing its pricing model, Agarwal said that a large part of the product costing includes manufacturing expenses and the cost of silver metal. Besides this, the profit margin is another element that is assessed before setting a marked or list price.

In essence, a marked price is what we see on a product while buying. 

The startup said it earns 90% of its revenue from online channels and the remaining 10% from offline channels. It asserts that it witnessed more than 100% revenue growth in the current fiscal year (FY22). 

Furthermore, it claims to have over 2 Lakh users visiting its website on a daily basis and enjoys more than 1.2 Mn customer base.  

It also operates more than 40 exclusive brand outlets across the country and further, aims to launch 100 odd retail outlets in Tier-II and Tier-III Indian cities by FY23-24. 

According to Maximize Market Research report, India’s gem and jewellery market was pegged at $25.30 Bn in 2020. The industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 21.35% by 2027. Some of the players operating in the country’s silver jewellery market include Melorra, STAC Fine Jewelry and Benaazir. 

In the last year, jewellery brands–Melorra, BlueStone and Aulerth raised $16 Mn, $30 Mn and $1.1 Mn respectively.