E-jeweller VelvetCase.com raises $1.5 mn in funding round

VelvetCase.com, the online destination for jewellery, has recently secured a second round of funding from marquee investors in the industry.
With the potential of creating a large profitable business in the US$ 40B Indian jewellery market, VelvetCase has raised upwards of US$ 1.5 million in this second round of capital infusion. This round of funding was led by Uniqorn Ventures Fund, which has now made six investments across diverse sectors, along with participation from well-known angel investors – TV Mohandas Pai and S Somasegar via the LetsVenture platform.
Furthermore, many existing investors including The Chennai Angels continued to show their trust in the founders and the robust business model of VelvetCase by participating in this round as well.
Kayar Raghavan of The Chennai Angels has been on the Board of Directors at VelvetCase.com since the first round and will continue to participate in the Board. In addition, Shiraz Bugwadia of Uniqorn Ventures Fund will be joining the Board of Directors.
VelvetCase will be infusing the freshly raised funds in technology, marketing and seller acquisition. Over the last 3 months, the core team has strengthen with the hiring of experienced leaders from companies likes Amazon, MakeMyTrip and Pepperfry.
“The intersection of jewellery domain knowledge with experience of building cutting-edge technology is very rare to find and build, and we have done it reasonably well at VelvetCase,” says CEO, VelvetCase.com, Kapil Hetamsaria.
With 300 plus jewellers from over 25 cities in India already using VelvetCase as their online platform of choice, the company is well poised to reach the next level of growth. Consumers, for the first time now, have access to the best jewellery designs from across the country. Be it a heritage Polki/Kundan jewellery from Jaipur, gold Temple Jewellery from Coimbatore or diamond jewellery from Bombay and Surat, the sheer variety on offer at VelvetCase.com in unmatched, making it the single largest online jewellery destination.
“While access is great, we know that consumers also need to be assured about the quality of the jewellery that they are buying from an independent designer in Jaipur. We have built our ‘VelvetCase Verified’ proposition in such a way that each product shipped to the customer passes through a stringent check for metal, gemstone, and manufacturing quality, and bears our assurance of trust, before being shipped out via secured logistics,” says COO, VelvetCase.com, Runit Shah.
The online destination for jewellery has grown over 300 per cent Y-o-Y with a unique cost-effective business model – no inventory, rich customer service, higher value product sales.
In 2014, the company had raised $1million (Rs 6 crore) in a funding round led by Chennai Angels and other angel investors, including Jacob Kurian, partner at New Silk route Advisors, Arihant Patni, cofounder of Nirvana Venture Advisors, and Jerry Rao, former CEO of software company MphasiS.