Omnichannel jewellery retailer Bluestone is in talks to raise around $100 million in a pre-IPO round at a likely valuation of more than $1 billion, catapulting the startup to the unicorn club, three people aware of the matter said.
This would be more than double its previous valuation of around $450 million in September 2023, when the company that sells online as well as through offline stores raised $65 million from a group of investors, including Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal and Zerodha’s Nikhil Kamath.
Bengaluru-based Bluestone’s pre-IPO round is seeing interest from new and existing investors, encouraged by the Tata Group’s CaratLane deal where Titan bought out the founder’s (Mithun Sacheti) stake last year.
Bluestone, the second largest omnichannel jewellery retailer behind CaratLane, has indicated to both public and private market investors in recent weeks on turning profitable by March 2025, people briefed on the matter said.
“Multiple bids to lead the new round have come and some are above $1 billion as well,” one of the people said. “The contours will be finalised in the coming weeks. The company has been meeting both public and private market investors in recent weeks. The model is now more understood and the ability to scale it in a profitable manner is more accepted.”
The round may also see some early investors offloading part of their holding.
Bluestone founder and chief executive Gaurav Singh Kushwaha declined to comment.
Besides Bluestone, Giva – a silver jewellery startup – raised $35 million in a round led by Wipro founder Azim Premji’s family office, Premji Invest, last year. Melorra is another venture-funded startup in the space.
Only two startups – Perfios and Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal’s Krutrim AI – have become unicorns this year so far, and the number was the same for the whole of 2023.
ET reported on February 15 that the Accel-backed firm is planning for a Rs 2,000 crore IPO this year and has started engaging with merchant bankers for this.
Singapore’s Temasek was in advanced stages of talks to invest in Bluestone last year, but the sovereign fund stepped away from the deal eventually.
“When they (Bluestone) started in 2011 and the following years, omnichannel wasn’t really understood by investors. Today, everyone is talking about omnichannel and its importance in a market like India. The CaratLane deal has given a valuation (Rs 17,000 crore at the time) benchmark as well,” a person briefed on the matter said. “The latest round is being seen as a price benchmark for the IPO.”
Bluestone, over the past year, has expanded heavily in offline retail with around 200 stores across the country as of now. It plans to have 500-600 stores over the next few years.
“There is enough data to show also that offline stores build brand credibility and that drives sales online as well,” another person aware of online jewellery market dynamics said. “These footfalls in store and where the order is correlated. Search volume online also helps in identifying locations at which a company wants to open its stores in,” the founder of a large omnichannel brand said.
Bluestone reported Rs 788 crore in operating revenue in FY23, up from Rs 476 crore the year earlier, even as its loss reduced to 167 crore from Rs 1,268 crore. The steep loss in FY22 was due to an accounting change. In FY22 it grew nearly 90% after a flat year of growth in FY21.
