Got a necklace to gift to someone because you missed your anniversary ? Well, there’s a new online marketplace coming up — quite aptly named ‘Joolz’, which I’m guessing is meant to refer to your constant ‘drooling over jewellery’. The startup has secured $500K in a seed round from ah! Ventures and others.
This current seed round was also led by Mahesh Ahuja – CEO, Brittman India, Sri Peddu – MD, Powerhouse Ventures, M&S Partners, Deepak Kasthwal – ex- CFO, OLA Cabs, PKX Thomas – ex Technology Head, Cleartrip, Neha Shah and angel round by GSF Accelerator.
Founded in May 2015 with total team of 9, Joolz is an India-focused community and marketplace that brings together leading jewellery brands on a single platform. The startup aggregates and curates quality jewellery inventory and offers its consumers an unmatched discovery and shopping experience. And it isn’t just limited to being an online sales platform. Joolz also enables two-way interaction between jewellery buyers and sellers through discussion, discovery and education. It is accessible as a smartphone app on Android and iOS platforms and on the website www.joolz.in
The primary objective of the recent fund infusion is to boost operations, products, marketing and further build up its team. The plan is to reach a new group of brands and investigate new revenue models, in order not to be a company solemnly focused on the online traction. The offline jewellery industry valued at over $40 billion, has a large opportunity untouched by technological initiatives.
Commenting on this round and the overall Joolz concept, Founder Arnoud Lorie says,
Buying jewellery is so closely intertwined with Indian culture that the act of simply selling it online is not going to create any significant impact in the market. We therefore want to be the single biggest facilitator of jewellery commerce, whether online, or more importantly offline.
Commenting on the thriving start up, Powerhouse Ventures’ Managing Director Sri Peddu opined, “What attracted us most was the company’s rich understanding of the jewellery space and the passion with which they are planning to transform the way consumers interact with jewellery, online and offline.”
Online jewellery in India is seeing rapid growth signs in recent times. But that is mostly focused on smaller ticket items ranging between INR 15,000 and INR 30,000. The Indian consumer has been buying jewellery in a certain way for the last decades, and for traditional and larger ticket items, this is not bound to change soon. Through Joolz, Founder Arnaud Lorie is looking to help consumers discover prices and options online and facilitate the offline process of buying the jewellery.
On that note, Joolz has been doing decently well. Lorie says, that Joolz has reached an average selling ticket size of about INR 25,000 in an industry where the offline ticket size is still hovering at INR 15,000. It has even managed to clock sales that have ranged up to INR 3 Lakhs.
Giving an investors’ perspective, Harshad Lahoti, Founder and CEO of ah! Ventures, said,
The online jewellery market in India is expected to grow at $3.6 billion over the next three years, which in itself makes the sector a lucrative one to invest in. In addition to that, given the background of the founder and their in depth understanding of the business, this enterprise has from the very beginning started off on the best foot possible.
ah! Ventures has been a proactive angel investor in the recent past. It is India’s first full-spectrum (seed, angel & VC) investment network and platform comprising of over 800+ investors, including some of the renowned angels and early-stage VCs. Founded in 2010, ah! Ventures has systematically disrupted the early stage funding ecosystem of India through its innovative approach toward startup investing.
First of its kind initiatives like the CLUB ah! platform, ah! Angels (India’s largest angel network), ah! Seeders and ah! VC networks (India’s first seed & VC investment networks), have brought together and integrated the previously segregated startup funding lifecycle, under one roof.
CLUB ah! platform today has over 12500+ startups, 725 seed/angel investors and over 85 VCs & institutional investors, making it one of the largest platform of investors and startups.
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