20 years ago, the idea of receiving almost any item in just a few days would have been unimaginable, yet today we have witnessed a tremendous increase in the availability of next-day and same-day delivery options for virtually any item. However, businesses still face challenges in obtaining supplies to sell, often requiring them to hold excess inventory to meet customer demands. Despite the existence of online platforms like Faire.com and Alibaba, or drop-shipping tools like Mirakl, purchasing inventory for businesses remains a complex, fragmented, and time-consuming process. Jewelry retailers, in particular, struggle with this issue.
Headline is thrilled to lead the $11M Series A investment in Nivoda, the leading online diamond marketplace revolutionizing the $30 billion diamond industry. Nivoda offers over a million of the world's diamond supply (natural and lab-grown) on their marketplace and has scaled their customer base over 3x YoY. With a track record of investing in ecommerce marketplaces and vertical software solutions like Farfetch, The Real Real, Appfolio, and Housecall Pro, we are excited to work with Nivoda, which promises to be the leading jewelry supply marketplace worldwide.
Nivoda Co-Founder & CEO, David Sutton, has a deep understanding of the diamond industry, having spent his entire career in the field and having started two diamond businesses, including engagement ring company, Taylor & Hart. As someone who has worked with both brick and mortar and online retailers, David witnessed firsthand the difficulty of sourcing diamonds, speed of access, pricing transparency and the need for vast amounts of inventory on hand to meet customers' needs. This frustration motivated David and co-founder Andre Woons to create Nivoda, which not only helps jewelry retailers source both lab-grown and natural diamonds but also verifies, ships, insures, and aids in launching ecommerce presences through API feeds and ecommerce tools, including a Shopify plugin. Nivoda also helps their customers launch e-commerce sites with a zero inventory model, allowing them to pull diamonds onto their websites and sell more diamonds at a higher velocity through the Nivoda API.
With little capital raised to date, Nivoda has impressively grown its domain expertise in this complex industry, a fact that we were immediately impressed with upon meeting the team. Nivoda currently specializes in serving the natural and lab-grown diamond market, with a long-term goal of expanding into the broader gemstone and jewelry segments. Their marketplace quickly sources, checks, and delivers diamonds to physical and digital storefronts worldwide.
“Every city that trades diamonds, whether it be Johannesburg, Hong Kong, London, Tel Aviv, Antwerp, Mumbai or New York has a diamond center. Bringing together countries to allow efficient trade between diamond centers is the vision which gave birth to Nivoda. Our mission is to create a place where the industry can trade together securely, profitably and efficiently. A platform where businesses can easily and reliably buy and sell diamonds while benefiting from reduced payment and shipping costs,” David Sutton, Co-Founder & CEO of Nivoda.
The diamond industry is ripe for marketplace disruption due to the fragmented supply chain and the commoditization of diamond cut, color, and clarity. Many retailers use wholesalers to get density of supply, verify products, and provide financing terms, which can cost as much as 20% for these services and don't always offer the best pricing and supply. Alternatively, retailers can go to lead generation websites like Rapnet and Idexx to find diamonds. Nivoda solves these problems by offering a marketplace that quickly sources, checks, and delivers diamonds in a matter of a few days.
While it may appear consolidated, the diamond industry is actually quite fragmented, with numerous diamond polishers individually polishing diamonds before they reach retailers. Nivoda's mission is to assist diamond retailers with their unique problems through the use of software and physical products over time. Headline believes that Nivoda is well-positioned to become the premier jewelry supply marketplace and is thrilled to work alongside the team to help them achieve their goals.