Jar Expands its Portfolio to Include Retail Jewellery Sales

Nitin Konde, Varun Bhardwaj

Oct 12, 2024 — 3 min read

Jar Expands its Portfolio to Include Retail Jewellery Sales

Wealth platform funded by Tiger Global-Jar has entered the e-commerce space in an effort to diversify its revenue streams and achieve sustainable growth. Co-founder and CEO Nishchay AG explained that the gold-focused micro-savings company, Nek, its direct-to-consumer jewellery brand, quietly entered the e-commerce fray in February. By October, Nek expects its Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) to exceed INR 100 crore.

There is a great demand for gold since it is a class that is easily understood and is quite stable, particularly when it comes to jewellery. Jar introduced Nek as a jewellery brand by allowing users to save in gold, Nishchay AG informed a media source. He said that the D2C brand is already profitable.

Investors Betting High on India’s Jewellery Sector

Over the past year, a number of Indian jewellery firms have attracted the interest of investors and raised a sizable amount of money. Bluestone, Giva, Kushal’s, Aukera, Trisu, Salty, and Eternz, to name a few, were all successful in raising money in 2024. The founder and managing partner of Rukam Capital, Archana Jahagirdar, stated that shifting Indian women's fashion trends are what stimulate investor interest in the jewellery market.

Weddings and festivals were the traditional occasions for wearing jewels, but now days, with a wider range of events, even daily wear has changed. The growing trend of Indian ladies dressing in Indo-Western or Western attire is driving the demand for various jewellery styles. In this market, developing brands is also becoming more and more important, she said, both at the higher and lower price points.

How Nek will Operate?

Jar, which was founded in May 2021 by Misbah Ashraf and Nishchay, enables users to invest modest sums of money they save from internet transactions in digital gold. Afterwards, users can liquidate or withdraw this as actual gold.

Jar will now provide users with the ability to turn this digital gold into jewellery directly from the platform via Nek. Nek has no intention of diversifying into other consumer categories and will only concentrate on jewels.

Jahagirdar went on to say that one of the most accurate methods to determine whether a plan is working is to look at the top line, or how quickly a vertical is developing without going over budget.

Current Competitors

Market analysts believe that in order to attract the interest of younger consumers, historical brands like Tanishq and Jar's Nek as well as challengers like CaratLane, Bluestone, and Giva will need to move cautiously and carve out a niche. The primary revenue generator for the business will remain to be the core vertical, where Jar provides investments in digital gold, accounting for at least 50% of total income. Earlier in the year, Nishchay announced on social media that Jar's ARR had surpassed $20 million (INR 168 crore).

Up to FY22, the business was in the pre-revenue stage. After beginning to monetise its user base in FY23, Jar's revenue was INR 8.7 crore. Nevertheless, it reported a INR 123 crore loss due to rising marketing and branding costs associated with bringing on new clients.