The $73 billion U.S. jewelry market is undergoing massive structural change caused by the introduction of lab-grown diamonds (LGD), the chemical and structural equivalent of a mined diamond. A lab-grown diamond looks just as beautiful as a natural diamond but is available at a fraction of the price.
In the fine jewelry market, jewelry set with diamonds controls over half of the market, according to Grand View Research, and within that, the engagement ring category commands the lion’s share.
While LGDs currently account for only about one-fourth of U.S. diamond retail revenues, their unit share is inching up to 60%, including 50% for engagement rings, up from about 10% in early 2022, reports Tenoris sales tracking data.
With the upheaval in diamond jewelry taking all the oxygen out of the room, colored gemstones have been quietly advancing in the market, including precious sapphire, ruby and emeralds and semi-precious amethyst, aquamarine, garnet, topaz, rose quartz and more.
They’ve got something most diamonds don’t – deep, rich color – yet they play well with diamonds. Taking center stage in an engagement ring surrounded by diamonds, a color gemstone ring is the very definition of a statement piece.
According to jewelry industry research firm MVEye, consumer interest in and acceptance of a colored gemstone engagement ring has risen to over 30%, particularly among the younger generation.
But with a current market share of about 15%, the colored gemstone engagement ring market has a long runway, one that husband-and-wife team Ankur and Aditi Daga are determined to capture with their vertically-integrated, direct-to-consumer online Angara jewelry company that they founded in 2005.
Being in the jewelry business, Angara doesn’t turn up its nose at diamonds – about 20% of its $100 million in annual sales are generated in diamonds, either natural or LGDs – but colored gemstones and pearls are the company’s bread-and-butter category.
“In ancient Sanskrit, Angara means ‘the fire within,’” Ankur shared with me. “Unlike in diamonds where everyone looks for flawless, colorless, inclusion-free stones, in color stones the inclusions reflect their mystery and beauty. Color makes that deeply personal, emotional connection.”
Bringing Four Centuries In Jewelry Into The Digital Age
Both partners have a rich heritage in jewelry. Ankur’s family were in the wholesale gemstone business selling gems from India and Thailand to U.S. retailers. Aditi’s jewelry roots go back farther, over 400 years and 16 generations in India. “This business is really in both of our bloods,” he relates.
The couple was following a more or less traditional business career, having attended graduate school together at Harvard. Before that, Ankur graduated from Wharton and got his first business gig with McKinsey where one of his major projects was to help turn around a jewelry retailer in India. That experience stuck with him and was a stimulus for founding their own jewelry venture after graduating from Harvard.
“We wanted to return the industry to its roots by using technology to enable customers to buy exactly the jewelry they wanted, not just what the jeweler had on hand to sell them,” he said.
In days gone by, the jewelry artisan would consult with clients to design the ideal piece, then travel far and wide to source the stones and bring them back to the studio to handcraft the design. It could take six months or more before the finished piece was presented to the client.
Now, with the company’s AI-powered “Create with Angara” app, consumers can select their exact stone from the company’s massive holdings of different shapes and sizes of gemstones, choose the ideal mounting and setting, then see in real-time what the piece looks like, including on the hand.
Once Angara receives an order, work begins and in just days the custom-designed and crafted piece of jewelry is delivered to the customer’s door in the U.S., U.K, Australia or Canada.
By the end of next year, Angara will have about 70% of the global jewelry market covered, with online launches this year in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands and India, followed by the Gulf countries, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan next year.
Industry Recognition
Fast Company recognized Angara as one of 2024’s Most Innovative Companies for its create-your-own design feature. Accolades don’t end there.
It was recognized by Newsweek as number ten among its top best online jewelry shops in 2024, behind Brilliant Earth (number one), David Yurman (number three), James Allen (number four) and Helzberg (number eight), but ahead of Tiffany (number 12) and Zales (number 14).
While some of these brands may have greater brand awareness, Angara is taking its message to the street in a “Celebrate with Color” advertising campaign that challenges the market’s diamond-centric status quo with cheeky taglines like “Love doesn’t need 4Cs. It only needs one: Color,” “Imagine nature without color. Neither could we,” and my personal favorite, “You gave your ex a diamond. Don’t make the same mistake twice.”
The campaign received this year’s Gold Stevie American Business Award in retail marketing. Ankur also won a Gold Stevie as Best Entrepreneur in Retail and two Silver Stevie Awards as Fastest Growing Company of the Year (under 2,500 employees) and Achievement in Customer Satisfaction.
Angara also makes the most of the gifting market with a rotating 12-month birthstone trend report. This month, it pays homage to Pearls, which are rapidly growing in popularity given their lustrous beauty and the fact that they are the only organically-natural, environmentally-sustainable and renewable gemstone. Angara’s pearl sales are up 34% this year.
Slow And Steady Wins The Race
Ankur is proud to say his company hasn’t taken a penny from venture capitalists and they have bootstrapped the company every step of the way, now with over 500 employees and offices in 10 countries.
“We’re building slowly to get it right with the ultimate goal to provide an experience for the customer with all the romance and artistry that is missing from the traditional jewelry buying experience where the jeweler pushes what they have to sell, not necessarily what the customer wants,” Ankur maintains.
He said it took a good seven years to “vertically integrate backwards” the Angara business model, including sourcing rough stones, cutting, polishing and manufacturing everything in-house.
And despite its emphasis on custom design, it maintains 10,000+ SKUs for customers to pick from and he added, “We are agnostic whether people buy diamonds or color; we just want to show that both are possible at the finest level.”
Now that the company has crossed the $100 million threshold having grown 4X from 2019 to 2023, it is ready to put its foot on the pedal to grow the business to $1 billion in sales by the end of the decade with color at the helm. “Colored gemstones and pearls were 80% of revenues last year, which may be higher than any other jeweler,” he believes.
MVEye’s Marty Hurwitz applauds Angara’s focus on the color gemstone category, which the change-adverse jewelry industry has largely ignored. “I’m a real believer in the opportunity for color gemstones, especially with next- gen consumers. The bifurcation of the diamond business – mined versus lab-grown– accentuates this opportunity even more.
“Our research shows consumers want to learn about color and purchase color. It’s a massive missed opportunity. Companies like Angara and others will find a willing consumer, eager to learn and purchase color gemstone jewelry , and especially create their own bespoke designs,” he concluded.
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