[100 Emerging Women Leaders] Vidita Kochar is redefining the jewellery market with lab-grown diamonds

Vidita Kochar was born in a family of chartered accountants and lawyers in Kolkata. She followed in their footsteps and pursued CA. 

When she completed her studies, everyone in her family thought she was ready to take on the family firm. However, Kochar decided to go down the less beaten path and become an entrepreneur. 

While Kochar always knew she wanted to become an entrepreneur, she didn’t expect to get into the jewellery business and be a pioneer in the lab-grown diamonds market. 

Kochar started her first company, Plan my Ad, in 2013 while still in college, with her brother Nipun, with a vision to use data for outdoor advertising. This venture did ad campaigns for brands including Ola, Zomato, Swiggy, Tata Motors and Tata Steel. 

However, four years later, Kochar and her brother Nipun realised that the idea didn’t sit well with many marketing managers.

“They were not keen on spending time and effort in offline marketing, and we decided the time wasn’t right to do something like this and shut it down,” says Kochar, who is today the co-founder of Jewelbox, which sells jewellery made from lab-grown diamonds. 

Jewelbox sealed a Rs 2-crore deal at Shark Tank Season 3 earlier this year. 

The origin of Jewelbox

After exiting Plan my Ad, Kochar did an MBA at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, following which she joined Swiggy as a marketing manager. She climbed up the ladder and became part of the launch team of Instamart. 

After three years at Swiggy, Kochar received a marriage proposal from her partner–now her husband–who gave her a huge diamond ring. 

“It was a sizeable stone. As someone who wasn’t into jewellery at all back then, I asked him why he had spent so much on something I may not even wear that much,” says Kochar. 

“That’s when he told me it was at least 40% less expensive than a natural diamond since it was lab-grown. It intrigued me so much that I decided to learn more about it,” she says. 

Kochar discovered that the diamond was grown in a lab using advanced reactors that mimic the conditions under which diamonds naturally develop under the earth. 

“Lab-grown diamonds are physically, chemically and optically the same as natural diamonds but cost a lot less, and they are ethical and sustainable as they were not mined from the earth. This re-sparked my interest in building a brand that reflected my values.”

As she went about her research, Kochar was surprised at how little her friends and the social circles in Kolkata knew of lab-grown diamonds as a concept. 

“Our research showed that the lab-grown diamond industry in the US had grown from 1% to 19% in four years–that was a big big jump. The US happens to be the biggest consumer of diamonds in the world, and these encouraging trends made us feel like it was only a matter of time before developing countries like India followed suit,” she says. 

Eventually, in 2022, Kochar and her brother started Jewelbox. 

The market potential 

The brother-sister duo also found that in India only a small percentage of people owned diamonds. These stones carried an aspirational value, which was fuelled by their high prices. 

Their research also showed that a majority of people in India couldn’t afford to buy diamonds or didn’t find them practical, because diamonds don’t necessarily make for good investments. 

“They have historically been low-performing asset classes,” she says. “But none of our research showed us how the fine jewellery industry in the country was built on trust. There were brands that generations of families went to, and we were just new entrants,” she adds. 

They found scope in this market, as they realised they could bridge the price gap by offering diamonds at a much lower cost  than mined diamonds.

“Lab grown diamonds cost at least 60-90% lower than natural diamonds, even though they are physically, chemically and optically the same,” says Kochar.  

“There are multiple reasons for this. But mainly, naturally mined diamonds are controlled by the market forces of demand and supply, which are often controlled by big corporates who own mines.”

With lab-grown diamonds, there is no aspect of scarcity and the mining process is also completely done away with, she says, and adds that the average cost of Jewelbox’s jewellery is Rs 40,000.

As a niche, category-creating brand, Kochar realised Jewelbox would face little threat or competition from traditional jewellers, who have been selling naturally mined diamond for years. 

“Getting into the lab-grown diamond space would mean cannibalising their own sales by nudging people to buy something that is cheaper than what they would otherwise buy from them,” she says. 

The tailwind came when Prime Minister Narendra Modi gifted a lab-grown diamond to Jill Biden, First Lady of the United States, during his visit to the US last year. 

Following this, Jewelbox was featured in Shark Tank, leading to a big surge in demand, traction and engagement for the brand. 

Jewelbox, which started with an online store in 2022, opened its first retail store in Kolkata the same year. It is planning to open more stores in Gurugram, Hyderabad, Bengaluru  and Ranchi. 

“We aim to open at least 30 more retail stores by the end of this year,” says Kochar. 

“Fine jewellery cannot have a ‘digital-first’ approach, because jewellery holds high sentimental value in the country. I can list 300 to 500 designs online but I will need to have a solid base of physical experiential stores too,” she adds.

To gain the loyalty of customers, Jewelbox strives to be transparent about the quality rating, price and break-up (estimates of cut, colour, clarity, purity of gold and gemstones). Its jewellery is certified by international labs and hallmarked. 

In its first year of operation, the brand raked in close to Rs 3.2 crore of revenue. But success didn’t happen without resistance in a traditionally male-dominated space.

A male-dominated space

Diamonds may be marketed as a ‘woman’s best friend’, but those behind their making are primarily men, says Kochar. 

“Every time I enter a trade fair by the Gold and Jewellery Export Promotion Council of India, I see I am often the only woman there,” she says. 

“Much of this is cultural,” she adds.

However, she is convinced that women don’t have to struggle to access opportunities, knowledge and capital, and it’s a matter of being in the right place at the right time. 

“If you have a solid plan, leadership in this industry transcends gender,” she adds.