Startups Polish Pitch To Make Lab-Grown Diamonds Sparkle

Firms focus on affordability, dispel myths to win over skeptical buyers, first-time consumers

- Sowmya Ramasubramanian

Young companies selling laboratory-grown diamonds are ramping up investments in building awareness and expanding product lines as growing adoption of the category in recent months has sparked optimism, industry executives told Mint. Bengaluru-based Jewelbox has nearly doubled its marketing budget in the last year and now incurs nearly 20% of its online expenditure on awareness campaigns, its co-founder Nipun Kochar said.

"About a fifth of our online digital spends goes towards awareness campaigns. There's a mental block around lab-grown diamonds compared to mined diamonds, and brands need to put in resources to disseminate the right information," Kochar added.

Jewelbox's other co-founder—Vidita Kochar—routinely posts videos on Instagram and YouTube sharing information about how lab-grown diamonds are made, how different they are from regular stones, and how one can pick the right one.

The firm appeared on the third season of Shark Tank India and received commitments from five sharks, including Lenskart's Peyush Bansal, boAt's Aman Gupta, Sugar Cosmetics's Vineeta Singh, Edelweiss Mutual Fund's Radhika Gupta, and Oyo's Ritesh Agarwal.