So/Facet Raises ₹10 Cr Led by Sauce for Lab-Grown Diamonds
Sauce's first jewellery bet is backed by the Mokobara co-founders and the family office behind HOCCO, all from its own portfolio. The brand has no sales until November and a 30-store target.
So/Facet has raised ₹10 crore before selling a single diamond.
The lab-grown diamond jewellery brand, founded by former Unilever managers Aarushi Agrawal Naulakha and Abhishek Naulakha, closed a seed round led by Sauce, its first institutional funding. It opens online in November 2026 and says it plans more than 30 premium stores within three years. The money goes into brand building, design, technology, hiring and an omnichannel rollout.
The cheque comes from inside Sauce's own circle
This is Sauce's first jewellery investment, and the cap table around it reads like the fund's own portfolio. Mokobara's co-founders, Sangeet Agrawal and Navin Parwal, invested personally, and Sauce led Mokobara's Series A in 2022 alongside Saama Capital. The Chona family office, which is behind HOCCO ice creams, is the other repeat name: it also appears in Mokobara's earlier rounds, and Sauce counts HOCCO among its investments. Kedar Lele, president of Haleon's India subcontinent business, and Devaiah Bopanna, described as a co-founder of Moonshot, complete the list of named investors. Neither the valuation nor the stake sold has been disclosed.
Sauce also co-led The Stack's ₹21.5 crore round earlier this month, and managing partner Manu Chandra is quoted on both. A fund that leads two consumer rounds within days, and brings its own portfolio founders into one of them, is running a method.
Two Unilever managers and a Unilever veteran on the register
Abhishek Naulakha is an IIM Ahmedabad and SRCC alumnus who spent seven years at Unilever across India and global sales and marketing roles. His last job there was Global Beauty and Wellbeing Channel and Portfolio Lead. Aarushi is a MICA Ahmedabad graduate and E4M 30 Under 30 honouree with six years across ITC and Unilever, including work on Dove and TRESemmé, and she has built a community of more than 100,000 across Instagram and LinkedIn.
Investor Kedar Lele also spent about two decades at Hindustan Unilever before moving to Castrol India and then Haleon, where he became India subcontinent president in January 2026.
A brand with no sales yet and a store target
The brand has nothing to sell until November.
So/Facet launches online with six collections of IGI-certified lab-grown diamond jewellery designed in-house. The three it has named are So/Me, built on playful shapes such as stars and butterflies, So/Pop, which pairs diamonds with stackable enamel charms, and So/Icon, a sculptural, design-led line. The company says it has a pre-launch waitlist of over 200 potential customers.
The founders position the brand against the category habit of selling diamonds for proposals and anniversaries, asking buyers instead "What's yours?" and presenting a diamond as personal expression. "We don't believe India's next great diamond brand will be built by selling the same jewellery for less," Abhishek said.
Two reference points show the scale of the retail ambition. Titan opened its first beYon store in Mumbai in December 2025 as a standalone lab-grown brand, separate from Tanishq, Mia, Zoya and CaratLane. Aukera, a lab-grown jewellery chain, raised ₹90 crore in July 2026 after growing its company-owned stores from 13 to 35 between fundraises.
I read the ₹10 crore as the price of proving the brand, not the cost of the stores. Thirty premium outlets in three years is close to Aukera's current footprint of 35, and Aukera has just raised ₹90 crore, nine times this round, to keep expanding. A waitlist of 200 is an early signal rather than a demand reading, so the real test comes in the first months after the November launch.
Frequently asked questions
How much has So/Facet raised?
So/Facet has raised ₹10 crore in a seed round led by Sauce, its first institutional funding. It is the only funding the company has disclosed.
Who invested in So/Facet?
Sauce led the round. Mokobara co-founders Sangeet Agrawal and Navin Parwal, the Chona family office, Haleon South Asia's Kedar Lele and Moonshot co-founder Devaiah Bopanna also invested.
When does So/Facet launch?
The brand launches online in November 2026 and plans to open more than 30 premium stores within three years.
