Melorra To Raise INR 9.3 Cr From Lightbox, Beeline Impex & Others

Indian fine jewellery brand Melorra is raising fresh funding in debt from Beeline Impex Private Limited, Chowdry Associates and existing investor Lightbox Ventures.

According to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) filings accessed by Inc42, the board of Melorra’s registered entity August Jewellery Private Limited passed a resolution on June 10 to raise INR 9.32 Cr.

In this deal, Lightbox, through Lightbox Ventures II and Lightbox Expansion Fund, is investing around INR 7.57 Cr. Beeline Impex Private Limited and Chowdry Associates are investing INR 75 Lakh and INR 1 Cr respectively.

As part of the transaction, Melorra is issuing 1,077 debentures to Lightbox, 108 debentures to Beeline Impex Private Limited and 144 debentures to Chowdry Associates. The price per debenture for the deal stood within a range of INR 68,971 to INR 78,933 with a nominal price of INR 100.

Prior to this, Melorra had raised $12 Mn in a funding round led by venture capital firms Lightbox Ventures and BlackSoil Capital. In January 2016, Melorra had received seed funding of $5 Mn from Lightbox Ventures.

Founded in 2016 by Saroja Yeramilli, Bangalore-based Melorra has been a part of daily-wear gold jewellery. The company claims to be selling “trendy and lightweight” jewellery that reflect global minimalist trends.

The company uses a computer-aided design (CAD) to directly sell to consumers. The company sells jewellery from the online platform and android and iOS applications. “We are filling a need gap by bringing to the millennial woman fine jewellery that doesn’t get confined to any occasion,” Yeramilli had said previously.

In the financial year 2018-19, the company claimed to have recorded a 400% year-on-year (YoY) growth. For the FY20, the company was expecting to expand its revenues by five-times. However, the company hasn’t published the revenues for FY20 yet.

Besides Melorra, some of the other players in this sector include CaratLane, Velvetcase, Sukkhi, Bluestone, Radiant Bay and Kuber Box. As per IBEF report, the gems and jewellery sector contributes around 7% of the country’s GDP and 15% to India’s total merchandise exports.

In this segment, Mumbai-based omnichannel jewellery startup eJOHRI raised $1 Mn in funding led by London-based investor Rajesh Ranavat alongside other investors in a Pre-Series A round in December 2019. Also, Titan invested $14.2 Mn in Chennai-based online jewellery store CaratLane last year.