Online jewellery brand Melorra set to raise $9 mn in debt funding round

August Jewellery, which operates digital-only jewellery brand Melorra, is in line to raise Rs 66 crore ($9 million) in a debt funding round.

The round will be led by Singapore-based Shadows Holdings with a Rs 49 crore ($6.7 million) investment, as per regulatory filings. Returning investor Lightbox Ventures will participate in the round with a Rs 15 crore ($2 million) investment, to be made through its funds Lightbox Ventures II and Lightbox Expansion Fund. New investor Gopinath Ambadithody, CFO of Embassy Group, will contribute Rs 2 crore ($279,961) in the round, the filings showed.

TechCircle could not ascertain additional details on Shadows Holdings or its earlier investments.

In October last year, Lightbox led a $12 million Series C funding round in the company. Returning investor Blacksoil Capital, a venture lender, had participated in the round along with new investors including the Burman family that runs Dabur, Great Eastern Shipping Company’s Ravi Sheth, Rainmaker Ventures and the Jeejeebhoy Family Office. 

Lightbox Ventures first invested in the company in 2016. 

Founded in 2015 by Saroja Yeramilli, Melorra aims to turn gold jewellery into more affordable, daily-wear and fashionable, in a Zara-esque fast fashion model for young women. With no inventory, brick-mortar stores, factory or in-house logistics setup, Melorra bills itself an asset-light, capital-efficient business.

The company competes with omni-channel jewellery brands such as Caratlane, which is now majority owned by Tata Group firm Titan, and Accel-backed BlueStone, besides horizontal ecommerce players Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal.

High Street Essentials, which owns omni-channel fashion brands FabAlley and Indya, launched jewellery brand Zyra last year.