Venture capital (VC) firms-backed BlueStone, an omnichannel jewellery retailer, has raised $30 million in funding at a valuation of $410 million, the company said on Tuesday. The round has been led by Sunil Kant Munjal, chairman of Hero Enterprise.
With this round, the company, operated by BlueStone Jewellery and Lifestyle Pvt Ltd, plans to step up its manufacturing capabilities.
Bengaluru-based BlueStone has 70 retail stores across India and plans to launch 100 more in the next fiscal year, with a cumulative 300 stores projected by financial year 2024.
The brand will expand its offline presence to cities such as Visakhapatnam, Jaipur, and Indore. For the fiscal year ending March 2022, the company expects to record a revenue of ₹500 crore, a growth of 85% over the previous fiscal year, said Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, the company’s founder and chief executive officer. It is targeting an annual revenue of about ₹2,000 crore in the next two years, he said.
The company was set up in 2011 by Vidya Nataraj and Kushwaha as an online retailer that used to ship jewellery across India and abroad. It is backed by investors such as Ratan Tata, Accel, Kalaari, IIFL, Iron Pillar, IvyCap, and Saama Capital, among others. In 2020, it had raised about ₹25 crore from its existing investors and Bethesda and Maryland-based Avanz Capital.
Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of group’s holding company Tata Sons, had invested an undisclosed amount in BlueStone in September 2014.
BlueStone competes with brands such as Melorra, which raised $12 million in a Series C funding round led by Lightbox in 2019, Voylla and CaratLane, which is owned by The Titan Company, which owns Tanishq.