Ethical jewellery startup Aulerth raised $1.1 million as seed funding from different investors. Some of the investors are M Venture Partners, designer Tarun Tahiliani, Taro Nordheider, who is the former CEO of Swarovski Professional, LV angel fund, and a network of McKinsey partners.
The startup has fashion designers like Suneet Varma, JJ Valaya and online jewellery brand Tribe Amrapali as its initial strategic partners. It is owned by Aulyra Design Private Limited.
The company offers jewellery that is couture-inspired and consciously made. It was founded by Vivek Ramabhadran who has worked at Swarovski as vice president and managing director for South Asia (Middle East, India, South East Asia), and also had a prior stint at McKinsey.
Tarun Tahiliani said Ramabhadran has blended sustainability and desirability beautifully into the company. "I look forward to this platform being a progressive and highly relevant leader in the Indian and global luxury landscape soon," he added.
Hiran Embuldeniya, partner at M Venture Partners, said, “Ramabhadran brings the leadership calibre and experience to unlock this significant market opportunity. This company can drive disruption in the Indian and global luxury space over the next few years. MVP is excited to lead the seed round for them, and be partnering with him on this journey."
The company has claimed its jewellery has minimal mining footprint due to the use of recycled metals and man-made stones. It also has a partnership model with designers where it develops and markets products with them. Ramabhadran said, “We are on an eternal pursuit of bridging seemingly disparate worlds of being couture-inspired, and consciously made. Our core point is: we don’t need to go through the destruction to create jewellery that we cherish as precious -- there is a more responsible way. We are also extremely excited to work closely with leading designer stalwarts on this pursuit, and scale up their businesses in India and globally."
The company’s other investors include a network of present and ex-McKinsey Partners - Movelum Gmbh (Morten Klumb), Viktor Hediger, Satya Rao, Akhil Jain, Mohit Jain, Raman Thiagarajan, and angel investors - Shanti Mohan, Founder - LetsVenture, Vikas Choudhury - President Reliance Jio, Deepa Bhatia (Head of YouGov India), Nishant Rao (Avataar Venture Partners), Upasna Dash (Founder & CEO of Jajabor Brand Consultancy), and others.
According to research firm Statista, the value of India’s jewellery market was over ₹3 trillion in 2016 and was estimated to nearly double by 2021.
Posted by Live Mint on Feb 15 | https://bit.ly/37FyuVj
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