Silver jewellery-focused startup GIVA said it has raised $10 million as a part of its Series A funding led by direct-to-consumer (D2C) focused venture capital funds Sixth Sense Ventures and A91 Partners.
The round also saw participation from India Quotient, Grand Anicut Angel Fund and Founder’s Bank Capital.
The Bengaluru-based firm will use the fresh funds for product development, venturing into new product categories and to help the platform grow both online and offline.
“Will be employing these funds to innovate contemporary offerings in the jewellery space, expand our presence globally and augment our online and offline sales channels. Our anchor investors with their expertise in accelerating the growth of the D2C brands will serve as a guiding force to catapult GIVA onto the next growth phase and achieve a target revenue of 200 crores for FY 2022,” said Ishendra Agarwal, Co-Founder, GIVA.
Founded in 2019 by Ishendra Agarwal, Nikita Prasad and Sachin Shetty, GIVA offers a range of designs in metals like 18K gold, rose gold and oxidized silver with embellishments of zircon, pearl, marcasite and other coloured stones.
The company claimed to have raised $675,000 across different seed rounds between August 2019 and July 2020 from investors like India Quotient, Snapdeal ’s Kunal Bahl, and ShareChat Co-founder Ankush Sachdeva among others.
“We have been apprehensive about the jewellery space in general given the offline demands of the gold segment (along with low purchase frequency and limited pricing leverage relative to spot gold) and challenges with respect to brand building for the fashion jewellery segment.
However, we believe GIVA has been able to crack the right mix of the channel (online dominated), product (affordable silver jewellery, designed for the modern consumer) and customer engagement - addressing our fundamental concerns," said Nikhil Vora, Founder and CEO-Sixth Sense Ventures.
Other players in this segment include Carat Lane, Bluestone and Melora, among others.
In October 2021, Melorra raised $24 million (around Rs 177 crore) in a financing round from 9Unicorns, Symphony International Holdings Limited, Value Quest, Venture Catalysts, Param Capital, and family offices.