Indiejewel Fashions, which operates the new-age Indian omnichannel jewellery company Giva, has raised Rs 270 crore (around $33 million) in its Series B round as it looks to expand in the country.
The round was led by Premji Invest, and was participated by existing investors Aditya Birla Ventures, Alteria Capital and A91 Partners.
Of the total amount garnered in the current round, there was a secondary swap of shares worth Rs 70 crore.
Established in 2019, Giva sells fine silver jewellery. It recently made headlines when it forayed into the 14K and 18K gold and lab-grown diamond jewellery segment.
The startup plans to use the corpus raised to expand its omni-channel presence as it plans to add more offline stores while expanding its product categories and offerings.
“Silver jewellery is a $4 billion opportunity in India with the organised market share at less than 7%,” said Varun Khandelwal, Principal – Investments, at Premji Invest in a statement. “We are excited to partner with Giva in its next growth phase and help build a leader in the space with a truly omnichannel play,” he added.
Meanwhile, Ishendra Agarwal, Founder and CEO at Giva added: “We look forward to leveraging Premji Invest’s playbook on omnichannel across several consumer brands and retail businesses to strengthen our leadership position and establish our pan India presence.”
The jewellery segment in India is increasingly evincing the interest of investors. Earlier, new-age retailer BlueStone, backed by the Indian industrialist Ratan Tata, was in the news for being in advanced talks to raise funding from Singapore state investment firm Temasek. DealStreetAsia had first reported about the development in February.
Deals in the segment come in at a time when startups in other sectors stare at a funding winter.
The jewellery market in India is witnessing significant growth post-COVID. While traditional players still dominate, the sector has seen a host of new-age players mushrooming such as Melorra, and CaratLane, apart from Giva and BlueStone.
Melorra raised $16 million in a Series D funding round from Axis Growth Avenues AIF-I, SRF Family Office, N+1, and existing investors in May last year.
CaratLane was backed by Tiger Global in its early days. The New York-based investor exited when Titan, a Tata Group-owned company, acquired a majority stake in it in 2016.