Omnichannel jewellery brand Bluestone has reportedly bagged Rs 900 crore in a funding round, taking the brand’s valuation to Rs 8,100 crore.
As per Economic Times, the funding round saw the participation of investing firms such as Peak XV partners, Prosus, Steadview Capital, Think Investments. Infosys co-founder Krish Gopalakrishnan’s family investment office Pratithi investments also participated in the funding round.
The development comes at at time when the Accel-backed firm is looking to file its draft red herring prospectus with SEBI this year. It had closed the pre-IPO round to set the valuation benchmark.
The company has already started engaging in talks with merchant banks and investors over the company’s IPO. The IPO will be valued at Rs 2000 crore as per ET.
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The funding reportedly saw Rs 600 crore in primary capital infusion with the rest being secondary share sale. Prosus contributed Rs 350 crore while Peak and Steadview invested over Rs 200 crore each.
Retail Jewellery business is seeing a renewed interest from investors in recent days. CRISIL ratings analysis of 54 gold retailers that account for 32% of revenue from organised jewellery sector stated that gold jewellery retailers is on a trajectory to achieve 17-19 per cent revenue growth in FY25. Recently, Aditya Birla announced its entry into retail jewellery business with an investment of Rs 5000 crore.
Bluestone will use the funds for its aggressive expansion plans. It has 220 offline stores now and will be looking to make it 400 in the next 12-18 months.
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Bluestone was founded in 2011 by Gaurav Singh Kushwaha and Vidya Nataraj. The company offers a wide range of jewellery collection such as rings, pendants, earrings and other products. In 2022, the start-up elevated Sudeep Nagar, its chief operating officer (COO) as its cofounder.
Bluestone is estimated to have closed FY24 with Rs 1,200 crore of revenue and Rs 3 crore in Ebitda. The company has achieved Rs 788 crore in operating revenue for FY23, which is an increase from Rs 477 crore, a year earlier. It had also brought its losses down to Rs 167 crore from Rs 1,268 crore in FY22. The steep loss in FY22 was reportedly due to an accounting change.
