Online jewellery marketplace VivoCarat raises seed funding

Online jewellery marketplace VivoCarat.com has raised $50,000 (Rs 33.8 lakh) in seed funding from a group of individual investors. The names of the investors were not divulged by the startup.

The corpus raised will be used for product development, team building, and marketing, the company said in a statement on Monday.

VivoCarat Retail Pvt. Ltd., which runs the platform, was founded in early 2016 by Ritesh Oza and Abhijith Shetty. Oza previously worked with game-based ed-tech startup Shirsa Labs and L&T Infotech, while Shetty was with Travelex and Jet Airways.

The company offers a range of new-age contemporary jewellery items, suitable for both special occasions as well as daily wear. It also helps brands accelerate their business by providing them a host of value added services.

"We add a minimum of 100-150 new designs on the site every month and will continue to bring more varieties for customers across the country. VivoCarat has successfully managed to join hands with more than 30 reputed brands across Mumbai & other cities like Jaipur, Surat, Kolkata and New Delhi." said Oza, who is also the chief executive of the company.

The company would soon be launching a new feature called 'Jewellery LookBook', which will help consumers update themselves on latest news, jewellery in trend, tips, fashion nooks, among others.

Online jewellery marketplaces have been attracting a lot of funding recently. In August, Mumbai-based GemSwipe Ltd, which runs online jewellery marketplace Joolz, has raised $500,000 (Rs 3.3 crore) in a pre-Series A funding round led by Powerhouse Ventures and M&S Partners.

In June 2016, online designer jewellery marketplace Velvetcase.com raised close to $2 million in a second round of funding led by Uniqorn Ventures Fund with participation from angel investors including TV Mohandas Pai and S Somasegar through online deal-making platform LetsVenture.

Prior to that, Bangalore-based jewellery e-tailer BlueStone raised $30 million (Rs 200 crore) in a fresh round of investment led by financial services firm IIFL Holdings Ltd and Accel Partners.

The company also competes with Caratlane. Titan, the Tata Group's watch and jewellery retailing firm, in July signed a pact to buy about 62% of CaratLane for Rs 357.24 crore ($53 million). This values the e-tailer around Rs 576 crore.

Another competitor, Melorra raised $5 million from venture capital firm Lightbox Ventures in January this year.

Horizontal e-commerce players Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal also operate in the field.