Velvetcase, an online marketplace for designer jewellery has raised $1 Mn (INR6 Cr.) in a funding round led by Chennai Angels and others. Jacob Kurian, partner at New Silk route Advisors, Arihant Patni, co-founder of Nirvana Venture Advisors, and Jerry Rao, former CEO of software company MphasiS, also participated in this round.
Velvetcase was co-founded by Kapil Hetamsaria & Runit Shah 2 years back and is based out in Mumbai. It connects international and Indian jewellery designers to customers in over eight countries. Further, the platform also allows its customers to send their own designs, which are then converted into the final piece of jewellery. Manufacturing is done in India.
“We will invest the money to strengthen our technology platform and analytics to make it more relevant and engaging for our customers as well as on marketing,” said co-founder Kapil Hetamsaria.
The startup gets about gets about 15% of its revenue from international markets and is growing at 200% year-on-year.
Kayar Raghavan of Chennai Angels said, “The idea was unique and scalable but ultimately what tipped it for me were the founders’ enterprise and infectious passion and the firm’s unique business model of presenting a globally crowdsourced but classily curated jewellery design.”
Recently BlueStone had also raised funding led by Ratan Tata.
