India's Titan buys Tiger-backed Caratlane

Financial details for the transaction have not been finalized; they will be announced upon the completion of accounting due diligence, according to a filing. Caratlane co-founder Mithun Sacheti told YourStory that Titan will buy out the company's existing investors. Tiger has committed over $50 million to Caratlane over several funding rounds, most recently a INR1.9 billion ($30 million) Series D round in January 2015.

Titan, a subsidiary of India's Tata Group, produces jewelry under the Tanishq brand and watches under the Titan and Fastrack brands. The company expects Caratlane, which also designs and manufactures its own jewelry products, to provide access to new customer segments and create new sales channels for Tanishq, which has so far been sold only at offline retailers.

In addition to its online presence, Caratlane also operates a chain of offline stores with 13 locations across the country. The company plans to continue growing this network under the new ownership.

The acquisition comes amid financial struggles for Titan; in its annual report, the company recorded drops in revenue - from INR119 billion for the year ended March 2015 to INR113 billion for 2016 - and profit - from INR10.7 billion to INR8.5 billion over the same period. Titan identified weak market conditions and new regulatory restrictions on jewelers as contributing factors to the decline.

Caratlane's competitors in the online jewelry space include Peepul Capital-backed Voylla, Kalaari-backed BlueStone, and Lightbox-supported Melorra, all of which employ jewelry designers to create and market unique products. The sector has been helped by recent government initiatives to improve labeling standards for gold jewelry, allowing customers to buy online with greater confidence.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Technology
• Consumer
• Trade sale
• India
• Tiger Global Management
• TMT
• Exit