Jewellery B2B portal Myheera.com to raise $ 6 million

Myheera.com, an online business-to-business (B2B) portal for the jewellery industry, is in advanced discussion with a couple of venture capital firms to raise $6 million (around Rs 39 crore) in a first round of external funding by the end of the current financial year, according to its founder Puja Bansal.

Founded in July 2015 in Delhi with a seed capital of close to Rs 5 crore, Myheera is currently present in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Jaipur. It plans to deploy the proceeds from the proposed external fund-raising to expand its footprint to Tier-II and Tier-III cities, besides investing in brand-building.

“The time and research that went into the making of the portal was more than two years of market survey with a sample size of 1,000 industry stakeholders. The research showed that the industry, which still runs on a touch-and-feel business model, has now matured enough to run a transparent business model using today’s digital approach,” Bansal said

Myheera.com, which went live last month, currently hosts over 6,000 manufacturers, retailers and traders apart from gems and jewellery education institutes, jewellery plants and machinery, jewellery laboratories, hallmarking centres, photographers, jewellery-dedicated lawyers and craftsmen.

With plans to consolidate the entire value chain of the gems and jewellery industry, where diverse products will be listed with comprehensive presentation from the companies to generate leads and boost high conversion rates, Myheera.com is looking at bringing 4,000 vendors more on board by the end of December.

“The idea is to make the portal a Google for the jewellery industry,” she said, adding that Myheera.com would be adding a multi-vendor business-to-consumer (B2C) module next month.

Currently, Myheera.com is working on a subscription-based revenue model, besides looking at the possibility of generating additional revenues through banner ads from vendors. It expects to achieve operational break-even towards the end of the next financial year, Bansal said.