Jewellery e-tailer Pipa + Bella raises $1 mn in fresh funding

Pipa + Bella, a private label non-precious jewellery e-tailer, has raised $1 million (Rs 6.4 crore) led by Fireside Ventures, early-stage consumer-focussed venture fund, a company statement said.

Existing investors LionRock Capital, Japanese investor and Beenos founder Teruhide Sato, and Roopa Nath of Mumbai Angels also participated in this round.

Fireside Ventures founder Kanwaljit Singh, who earlier co-founded Helion Venture Partners, will join the company’s board as part of the transaction, the statement added.

The firm will use the capital to build its brand through marketing efforts, scale operations via new distribution channels, and to hire talent.

Pipa + Bella was launched in 2012 by Shuchi Pandya, an alumnus of The Wharton School and the NYU Stern School of Business. She has 10 years of experience in making and designing jewellery. Before starting Pipa + Bella, she founded Blue Banyan, which employed rural artisans to design and manufacture silver jewellery merged with indigenous materials and rare jewels.

Pipa + Bella last raised funds in 2015. It secured $600,000 (Rs 3.8 crore then) in a pre-Series A funding round led by LionRock Capital. Sato and Nath participated in the round.

Rajesh Sawhney, co-founder of food-tech platform InnerChef and founder of tech startup accelerator GSF, is also an investor in the Pipa + Bella, but did not back the firm in the current round.

The company offers custom-made and ready-made jewellery in the price range of Rs 500 to Rs 3,000 to women in India and Southeast Asi. It claims to have over 800 stock keeping units. Consumers can buy Pipa + Bella’s products via its website or iOS app.

For the financial year, 2016-17, the company earnings stood at Rs 3.2 crore as compared to Rs 1.5 crore the year before, filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) showed.

It competes with Voylla, Crunchy Fashion, Juvalia & You, Bluestone, and Caratlane as well as horizontal e-commerce giants such as Amazon and Flipkart, which also sell fashion jewellery and accessories.

In March this year, regulatory filings revealed that Bluestone is set to raise $5.87 million (Rs 38.29 crore) from its existing investors Accel Partners, Kalaari Capital, RB Investments, and others.