The Great Diamond Divide

Lab-grown diamonds are on the rise due to their affordability. Will they outshine the rarer, natural gems?

- By BENU JOSHI ROUTH

Lisa Mukhedkar was 19 when she first wore her mother's diamond solitaires for a wedding. And she was hooked.

But much as she coveted one of her own, she couldn't justify the sky-high price tag. “And there was no other option. When I last looked at it a few years ago, it was ₹36 lakh. For that kind of money, I could buy an apartment,” says Mukhedkar, now 56.

In 2023, in what she calls a “life-changing moment”, Mukhedkar discovered lab-grown diamonds (LGDs). For ₹3.5 lakh, she bought earrings that would have cost her nearly 12x had they been natural diamonds. In the man-made gems that married aspiration with value proposition, Mukhedkar sniffed a business opportunity.

With Kumar Saurabh, a former client at a retail design company she had co-founded in 2006, Mukhedkar co-founded Aukera, and opened its first store on Dickenson Road, the jewellery street of Bengaluru. “We sat next to Malabar and other natural diamond retailers such as Caratlane, Bluestone, Tanishq, and Joyalukkas,” she says, adding that in one-and-a-half years, the company has now scaled up to 15 stores across three cities. The company also recently raised $15 million in a Series B funding round led by Peak XV Partners, with continued backing from existing investors including Fireside Ventures, Sparrow Capital.

“LGDs are gaining significant traction, particularly among millennials and Gen Z,” says Dipayan Mukherjee, senior manager, research, Netscribes, a global data and insights firm. “Their appeal lies primarily in affordability—one can get a much larger and higher-quality LGD for the same price as a smaller natural diamond. There is also a growing preference for what is being perceived as a more ‘ethical’ and ‘sustainable’ option,” he adds.

Globally, the LGD market is expected to reach $56 billion by 2031 from $22 billion in 2021, growing at a CAGR of 10 percent, says Allied Market Research (