Dipti Gore
9th July 2015, BANGALORE: Ratan Tata backed BlueStone.com, an online jewellery destination, today announced a third round of VC funding, worth Rs 100 crore. The funding is led by Accel Partners, IVY Capital and Dragoneer, with participation from Kalaari Capital and Saama Capital. Avendus Capital was brought in as advisor for this transaction.
BlueStone will continue to invest a significant portion of the funds in marketing efforts to build a strong and distinctive brand. With the current revenue run rate of 80-100 Cr per annum, BlueStone has grown by 150% year on year. “Consumers are far more comfortable buying jewellery online today, than a year back. The eco-system in India has enabled trust in the e-commerce sector. I am confident about achieving over 200% growth every year for the next 2-3 years”, Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, co-founder and CEO of BlueStone, said.
“BlueStone is the first online brand at scale – trusted by lakhs of online Indian consumers.” Prashanth Prakash, partner at Accel, said.
BlueStone is expanding its team to cater to the growing demand. Currently with 250employees, BlueStone is expected to add close to 150more people across levels in the next 6 months. “Expanding our team will enable us to launch more designs more frequently. Significant efforts are already under way to improve the user experience on mobile and desktop platform”, Gaurav said.
“We decided to invest in BlueStone team because we believe in the team due to their strong pedigree of IIT and IIMs” Vikram Gupta, Managing Partner at IvyCap Ventures, said.
The Bangalore-based BlueStone is unique due to its vertically integrated model from manufacturing to e-tailing. Owning its supply chain end to end enables BlueStone to deliver consistently high quality experience to its customers. Additionally, through its unique operating model, BlueStone is amongst the few e-commerce start-ups in India which are operationally profitable.