Jewellery e-comm firm Melorra raises $12 mn series C from Lightbox, others

Online jewellery store Melorra on Wednesday said it had raised series C funding of $12 million from venture capital firm Lightbox, Mumbai-based BlackSoil Capital and some family-owned funds.

Ravi Sheth of Great Eastern Shipping Company, Dabur’s promoter family, Rainmaker Ventures and Jeejeebhoy family office participated in the round. DPNC Advisors, the financial advisory arm of Dewan PN Chopra & Co. advised Melorra on raising capital from the Burman Family Holdings in this round.

The company had earlier raised $12 million from Lightbox, which bring its total fund-raise to date to $24 million.

Melorra, which was started by Saroja Yeramill in 2015, claims it has popularized daily-wear jewellery as a concept in the market. The company majorly focuses on trendy, lightweight gold ornaments for women.

“We are filling a need gap by bringing to the millennial woman fine jewellery that doesn’t get confined to any occasion. I had conviction in the potential of this market when I started out and my belief has been validated by the response from the customers across India. Going forward, our aim is to become the largest daily-wear fine jewellery brand in the country,” said Yeramill, who has spent 10 years in sales and marketing roles at Titan.

“As a consumer brand by a woman for women, Melorra has been a changemaker in the segment, bringing about a transformation in the way people look at gold jewellery. We are sure the funding will enable them to enhance their capabilities and grow deeper in the markets that they service,” said Sid Talwar, Partner, Lightbox.

Melorra competes with Caratlane, BlueStones, and upcoming online fronts of traditional jewellers like Tanishq, Kalyan Jewellers, etc. To be sure, Caratlane was acquired by Titan early this year.

The company said it plans to use the funds from this round to invest in technology, marketing and hiring.

According to the company, Melorra has recorded a year-on-year growth of 400% in FY 2019 and is expected to clock Rs 400 crore in revenues in FY21. While it did not offer any figure of revenue, it said it was seeing huge demand across the 1300 towns, including tier II and III cities, it caters to.