India’s biggest stockbroker Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath will be chipping in Rs 100 crore into Bluestone, an omnichannel jewelry retailer. This is because competition has increased in the space. The investment comes as an initiative of a funding round in which other famous participants include Zomato founder and chief executive Deepinder Goyal and CEO Amit Jain, and financial services firm IIFL, according to a report.
MG Motor India expands its retail presence in Uttar Pradesh; opens sales facility in Jhansi
Bluestone founder and CEO Gaurav Singh Kushwaha approved the news mentioning that the Bengaluru-based company was in the final stages of reserving a funding round amounting to $65 million (around Rs 550 crore), which will take the worth of the company at around Rs 3,600 crore ($440 million), reported the Economic Times on September 23, 2023.
Is China losing its sheen as the favourite investment destination after Covid?
Ranjan Pai, chairman of Manipal Group, and Info Edge Ventures are also a part of the funding round, each would be providing around Rs 100 crore. Existing investors, as well, are taking part in this funding round, Kushwaha said to the Daily.
The latest funding round for Bluestone arrives after Tata Group’s Titan obtained the stake of Mithun Sacheti, the founder of CaratLane, a competitor omnichannel retailer, mentioning how the company has been valued at around $2 billion.
Earlier, Bluestone raised $30 million from the family office of Sunil Kant Munjal of the Hero Group. This led the company to be valued at $378 million, according to the report. These developments mention the competitive dynamics and acquisition activity within the omnichannel jewelry retail space in the country.
“We will expand on what’s working for us — the omnichannel play. We have 175 stores and there is definitely space to have 500-600 stores eventually,” Kushwaha was quoted saying to the Financial Daily.
He further mentioned how there was important traction all over cities, from tier 1 to tier 3. This stressed the huge chances that lay ahead for the organization. A major portion of the newly secured capital would be provided towards increasing the omnichannel presence and technology investment to smoothly combine and optimize the operations.
Set up in 2011, Bluestone is one of the early entrants in the vertical e-commerce sector. However, in the last 18 months, it has converted its operations by stressing on setting up an offline presence.
According to Wikipedia, Zerodha is a financial services company in India that provides institutional and retail brokerage, currency and commodity training, mutual funds, and bonds. Started in 2010, Zerodha has its headquarters in Bengaluru and has a physical presence in several important cities in India.
Started in August 2010 by two brothers Nithin and Nikhil Kamath, Zerodha indicates a mix of words for the company’s ideals: such as Zero and Rodha. If you don’t know, Rodha is the Sanskrit word for barrier.
As of 2019, Zerodha was the most extensive retail stock broker in India by active client base and contributes up to 2% of day-to-day retail volumes on Indian stock exchanges.
Zerodha is also an investor in Kofluence, which is an AI-driven adtech influencer marketing platform.
