LGD Times | February 2023

In an exclusive interview

SANAT VAVIYA

The MD of Devngi Gems shares the story of how his company bagged two patents.

Expert opinion by Paul Zimnisky

Guest column by Dr. Sandeep Goyal

on Smiling Rocks

Everbrite Jewellery's startup story Svaraa Jewels' retail innovation.

ADDNEWSPARKLES TOYOUR BUSINESSSUCCESSSAGA

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- Dubai - United Arab Emirates

12 - 14 February 2023

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1 - 5 March 2023

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Love Is In The Air

Let me begin with a few lines of gratitude to all the stakeholders of the Lab Grown Diamond industry.

With your help and support, we have embarked on an exciting journey where a fair exchange of developments and ideas is very important.

I take this opportunity to personally thank Shri. Bharat Shah, the doyen of the diamond industry. We are grateful

By virtue of the direct tax benefits extended to the middle class consumers in the 2023 budget, there will be more money in their hands and this is a good sign for the diamond industry.

National Retail Federation (NRF) is the leading authority and voice for the retail industry inAmerica. NRF conducted a survey of 7,616 US adult consumers from 3rd through 11th January. According to their findings, Valentine’s day , celebrated on 14th February every year has emerged as a major event for gift buying.

The top gifts that consumers buy for their loved ones include candy (57%), greeting cards (40%), flowers (37%), an evening out (32%), jewellery (21%), gift cards (20%) and clothing (19%).Americans plan to spend more than $5.5 billion on jewellery and nearly $4.4 billion on a special evening out, NRF said. About one-third (32%) plan to give a gift of experience, up from 26% last year and the highest since NRF and Prosper started asking this question in 2017.

Consumers are expected to spend $25.9 billion on

Valentine’s Day this year, up 8% from $23.9 billion in 2022 and one of the highest spending years on record, according to NRF’s annual survey .

In India too, young consumers express their love by gifting diamond jewellery. While majority of the gifts are for girlfriends and spouses, it is now being extended to other members of the family too.

As consumer acceptance for lab diamonds increases, many young millennials who are looking for a sustainable alternative will consider lab diamond jewellery for gifting. The domestic market for jewellery is expected to remain firm due to the forthcoming wedding season.

According to industry analysts, amidst the headwinds in China and the western markets, India offers a bright spot. India stands out as the market which had a good run in 2022 and is expected to weather the economic storm better than other economies. The diamond jewellery market will also follow and will be one of the markets expected to have the highest growth. Additionally, the Middle East market, driven by buoyant oil prices, is expected to continue to do well. Luxury brands have had a stellar 2022 and they too will continue their run.

Let’s together welcome the Love Season beginning with Valentine’s Day followed by weddings.

Rajesh Bajaj

Bharat Shah

Indian Lab Grown Diamond Industry Marches Ahead

It gives me a great pleasure to present the fourth issue of Lab Grown Diamond Times. Eminent experts such as Dr. Sandeep Goyal and Paul Zimnisky have consented to share their work for all our readers. Thank you, gentlemen. It means a lot to us.

Scientist of National Physical Laboratory of India (NPL) is also IIT Kanpur alum.

It is therefore not surprising that in the 2023 Budget, the GOI has decided to provide R&D grant for 5 years to one of the IITs. This grant is to be utilized towards research in developing indigenous machinery to manufacture LGDs and growing seeds.

My learning journey from millennials continues. I have featured the stories of Chahat Shah (21), Surya Jain (31), Mehul Jain (35) and Biraj Shah (39) in these pages. Their efforts in boosting demand, distribution and retailing of lab diamond jewellery are noteworthy National and international trade shows help LGD manufacturers to reach out to new geographies and widen their reach. After the success of IIJS Signature 2023 show, all eyes are now on GJEPC’s IIJS Tritiya in Bangalore to be held in March.

The recently concluded Vicenzaoro in Italy, provided an excellent opportunity for the Indian LGD exhibitors to explore business opportunities with European jewellers. icenzaoro, which takes place in the industrial fair grounds of Vicenza in northeast Italy, near Venice, is the largest jewellery, watches, and accessories trade show in Europe, attracting retailers, wholesalers, manufacturers, and designer buyers from around the world.

I take this opportunity to thank Hasu Dholakiya for sharing his experience as a participant in this show. He has contribution of sharing amazing photographs and inputs added value to our magazine content.

I invite all exhibitors who participate in international shows to share their experiences. Please feel free to email your thoughts to me on editor@lgdtimes.com.

Paul in his report : Lab Diamond Sales Grow Amidst Falling Prices , (page no ) has acknowledged the contribution of Indian industry in bringing down the prices of not just the LGDs but the MPCVD reactors as well.

In this issue , we have featured four leading manufacturers who are contributing towards, making the Government of India’s Make In India program a reality. Their efforts are being acknowledged and will be further boosted by the provisions of Budget 2023.

The LGD industry has been identified by our honorable FM, Nirmala Sitharaman as a major thrust area. The recent sops will help consolidate and strengthen the LGD industry.

Our cover boy, the soft spoken, amiable and media shy, Sanat Vaviya , MD of Devngi Gems is representative of young India. At 23, he is ideally poised to take his company to greater heights. Devngi Gems holds a patent for the manufacturing of MPCVD reactor. I am sure, you will find the story of their two patents fascinating. Our second story on the California based Serenity Technologies founded by Dr.Suneeta and Jayant Neogi is equally interesting. These alumni of IIT Kanpur are making India proud in the LGD and diamond alternatives space. Coincidentally, Dr. P N Dixit the technological mastermind behind Devngi Gems, and former Chief

Lab Groown Diamond Times is perhaps the only Indian trade magazine to feature book reviews. In this issue too we have reviewed two interesting books.

Valentine’s Day is all about love, but there’s no rule that says it must be all about romantic love. February 14 is also a great time to show appreciation for friends – the old ones, the close ones, the fast ones, the true ones, and most importantly, the best ones.

So go ahead and express your love by gifting a diamond because a diamond can say it better than words.

Anil Prabhakar

Devngi Gems: Making India Proud.

Dr. Dixit’s area of expertise was in Nano technology. He had retired from IIT Kanpur. He and his son Sanjeev Kumar Dixit did not find it difficult to realize the business potential of LGDs. They therefore decided to collaborate with the Vaviya brothers and help them in research and development.

Dr. Dixit had set up a research & development center in Delhi. My dad lived in Delhi for two years to learn the technical aspects of the CVD process. He soon was able to rope Dr. Dixit in the business as technical partner. They started researching in 2015 and within two years developed an MPCVD manufacturing reactor and recipe that led to the start of LGD business.

The Early Years:

My grandfather Sambhubhai Vaviya, a farmer from Amreli migrated to Surat in search of a business opportunity. The opportunities of gainful employment there were limited. He started his career first as an artisan and later started trading in diamonds. My father Naresh bhai and uncle Hasmukh bhai decided to be a little different and started gold jewellery retail in the Devngi jewellers. Devngi is the name of our family deity. Once the business was set up, they also started dealing in diamonds in the domestic as well as export markets. They also dabbled in sand mining and real estate for some time. In 2014, they identified an opportunity in lab grown diamonds.

It so happened that my father while reading a newspaper came across an article about lab grown diamonds. At first he found it difficult to believe that diamonds can be grown in a laboratory and shared the article with Hasmukh bhai. The brothers decided to dig deeper and find out more about this industry. Their research led them to a conference in Delhi where they met Dr. Prakash Narain Dixit.

started growing diamonds on a large scale. In the initial years, getting diamond seeds (they were not available) was difficult. One had to slice the natural diamond rough, cut it and polish it for growing in the reactor.

We started growing diamonds in a reactor that was designed, developed, and fabricated in house. We have never imported or used an outside reactor in the growing process. The components for the reactors were of course sourced/ imported from abroad.

Depending on the recipe the output from a reactor ranges from 200 carats ( of GHI color ) to 120 carats per month ( of EFG color). If you treat IJK color rough, you can get pink & Blue diamonds. Usually the lower quality diamonds are treated for manufacturing fancy colored diamonds. There is an elaborate and time consuming process as the diamonds need to undergo the process of ion bombarding

Dr. PN Dixit

Sanat Vaviya

The market for fancy color LGD is small but growing rapidly. There is a huge demand for white diamonds. Growers in India therefore send the diamonds to Bhabha Automic Research Center (BARC) for ion bombarding. The process generates harmful gamma rays. Moreover, the equipment for ion bombarding is very expensive. It therefore makes no commercial sense to invest funds for this activity. None of the growers do the treatment of CVD diamonds. High speed ion bombarding removes the nitrogen from the diamond. Once the diamonds are received from BARC, they go for the annealing process. Ion bombarding and annealing results in the change of color of the diamonds. Diamonds of inferior color go through this process that takes on an average 9 days.

Business opportunity :

Many growers in India were facing a problem in sourcing good quality reactors. The reactors made by German and Japanese companies were expensive. The Chinese reactors though cheap had quality issues, (after sales service backup was also poor) Devngi therefore spotted an opportunity in late 2020. We therefore decided to market MPCVD reactors that would ultimately help the Indian market grow. This initiative is greatly in line with Govt of India’s Make in India program.

Devngi therefore participated in the LDJS 2022 show in August. The show helped Devngi to generate a good business. We have booked big orders from the domestic as well as overseas market. Currently our factory is

booked for the next four months to complete the order execution.

We have a technical collaboration with a German company Fricke and Mallah GMBH in 2019 for the power supply units that are an integral/ key component of the reactor. Power supply greatly increases the efficiency of the machines.

Many Government research laboratories are our clients. Indian companies have realized that in order to be profitable, controlling the supply chain is crucial.

Growing diamonds has now become an imperative. They now have an Indian company that can help them grow their own diamonds. We help companies who want to grow their diamonds by selling the same machines that we ourselves use.

Our machines’ prices range from Rs. 85 lakhs and are comparable in quality with Seiki. We also provide technical knowhow and help to develop the recipe to our clients.

Business constraints :

In India there is a huge shortage of power supply. In order to get a sanction for additional power it takes six months or more. Our reactors can do LPHT treatment and there is no need for the rough to undergo HPHT processing. Our reactor patent is for LPHT (Color change from Brown to white ). The manufacturers using our machines don’t need to send their diamonds for HPHT processing.

For HPHT treatment a grower has to invest in expensive machinery/ HPHT press. The other option is to send the rough to other manufacturers. Our reactor can do both the process that save time and money.

Future prospects :

The global sale for lab grown diamonds has registered a growth of 40%. This is just the tip of an iceberg. America is the largest market today. As the other international markets and the domestic Indian markets open, there will be exponential growth

There is something special about Amreli district. Many prominent people from the diamond industry are the natives of either Amreli city or villages in its vicinity.

Some of them are:

1.Bakul bhai Limbasiya of Bhatwari group.

2.Govind bhai Dholakia of SRK group.

3.Padmashri Savji bhai Dholakia of Hari Krishna group.

4.Sambhubhai Vaviya of Devngi Gems.

5.Snehal Patel Dungrani of Bhanderi Lab Grown Diamonds.

6.Vasant bhai Gajera of Laxmi Diamonds.

In addition to the above, Dilip Shanghvi, the founder of Sun Pharma, one of the richest person in India also hails from Amreli.

Many of the diamontaires of Surat migrated in research of work as Amreli had limited business opportunity.

In order to provide employment to the people of their native place, they have set up Gem cutting and polishing industries in small towns such as Babra, Savar Kundla and Dhari . Several gold plating units have been set up in Bagasara city.

Devngi Gems has secured two patents in its business journey viz; a PRODUCT patent as well as a PROCESS patent. The first one was granted for the invention of Microwave Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition System and the process patent for the invention of PROCESS FOR CHANGING COLORED DIAMOND INTO A COLORLESS/FANCY COLOR DIAMOND BY ANNEALING USING MICROWAVE PLASMA ENHANCED CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION SYSTEM.

The grant of patent is a validation of our technical

prowess in the intellectual property space. Many formalities and paperwork are involved. It requires a lot of persistence and patience to undergo audits and answer the technical queries that arise once an application is filed. The application for both the patents was filed at the same time. While the product patent took three years, the time required for the process patent was 5 years.

It is interesting to note that Element six a DeBeers group company had also applied for a patent in India in 2017. Devngi was allotted the patent based on the uniqueness of the reactor design.

Serenity Technologies : Providing turnkey solutions to the Lab Grown Diamond Industry.

An integrated player with a presence from the laboratory to the retail shelves has better chances of becoming successful. To become a globally profitable LGD company it is essential to control the entire supply chain from the lab to the market. It is a known fact that being a grower is most profitable compared to being a reseller especially with the slide in LGD prices. It is relatively easy to invest in equipment but the technical know-how to be successful at growing diamonds of superior quality in large quantities at a consistent pace is much harder to achieve. The technocrat duo Jay & Suneeta Neogi at Serenity are now offering an innovative solution and know-how to enable jewelry manufacturers and retailers to consider becoming independent growers. Dr. Suneeta Neogi, shared many insights during her

Serenity. His passion for problem solving has been the foundation on which Serenity built its strong portfolio of technology and products. He developed the focused ion beam invisible table branding technology which was licensed exclusively to DeBeers and led to Serenity's entry into the Gem industry. His work in invisible marking technology led to an invitation from the White House during President Clinton's time as a speaker at the Diamond identification and Tracking conference.

Serenity is uniquely positioned to help any company seeking to become a Prime Grower by offering the following services:

Guidance to procure the required equipment and create the requisite infrastructure, Process knowledge and recipes to rapidly scale up to production quality without having to expend the time and effort to start from scratch. Today any company can buy an MPCVD machine from the known suppliers, but the challenge is the recipe and process know-how required to ramp up rapidly and produce gem quality roughs within a reasonable time frame. Serenity is focused on development of large crystal growth to enable production of 5-7 carat diamonds.

It is one of the only privately held companies who has developed all the process steps and equipment in-house as shown in the chart below and is now offering an innovative solution that is ideal for companies seeking to become a grower.

Jayant Neogi

Suneeta Neogi

Lab-grown diamond material consists of the single crystal block of a size determined by the seed substrate area and the growth height. The block is typically surrounded by black polycrystalline diamond (PCD) material which can be removed by standard laser sawing (coring process) but if the single crystal block is of a pyramidal shape due to lateral growth and requires complete removal of the polycrystalline diamond then Serenity's proprietary process comes in very handy. This technique “only” removes the polycrystalline diamond without any effect to the single crystal material.

Serenity’s focus on lab grown diamond production has recently led to the development of a new cost-effective solution for the ultra-polishing of both lab grown diamond, as well as mined diamonds. Additionally, as a diamond grower, Serenity recognizes the need for ultra-polishing technology applied to diamond seeds fabricated for growing single crystal diamond blocks.

Most growers use mechanically polished CVD single crystal seeds for their growth process, which typically starts with a laser sliced seed crystal that is polished using a conventional diamond scaife. The quality of the seed surface significantly influences the subsequent growth process due to various factors such as mechanical damage, pitting, cracks, surface stress, point defects, seed angle, thickness etc. A superior polish finish helps reduce stress and damage that result from the mechanical polish process and this can be achieved via Serenity ultra-polishing slurry paste.

The difference between single and poly crystal diamonds:

Single crystal LGD as the name suggests literally refers to diamond grown in a laboratory. Diamond can be polycrystalline, nano crystalline or single crystal. In the context of the gems industry the focus is on single crystal which means the diamond consists of an orderly

Images of CVD rough from Serenity

Images of CVD rough from Serenity

three-dimensional arrangement of the constituent carbon atoms repeated throughout its entire volume. Diamonds are separated into 5 types - Type Ia, Type Ib, Type IaB, Type IIa, and Type IIbA. A single crystal LGD diamond is of Type IIa which is the purest of forms of diamond (less than 2% of mined diamonds are of this type) and can be cut and fashioned into a gem, its material, composition, and properties being no different than its mined counterpart which has dominated the jewelry industry as the most valuable of all precious stones.

Growing Single Crystal Diamonds:

Single crystal LGDs are grown using two techniquesHPHT (high pressure high temperature) growth process or CVD (chemical vapor deposition) process. In the HPHT technique carbon is diffused through a metal alloy to the seed in a growth apparatus at high temperature and pressure conditions similar to how diamonds were formed in the earth. Large colorless crystals can be grown by this method.

In the CVD technique growth of single crystals is achieved through a homoepitaxial deposition process wherein carbon atoms attach themselves in an orderly arrangement over the starting diamond seed material in a reactor. The conditions for generation of the carbon species is via an energetic plasma that is created by microwave or RF (radio frequency) techniques to dissociate the process gases. The CVD technique has more bandwidth for producing higher quantities of crystals per growth cycle as well as the ability to grow very large size crystals.

CVD has a better future as this is the only method by which ultra-high purity large-area diamond wafers are produced for semiconductor applications which is by far the more significant and larger market for single crystal diamond.

HPHT diamonds have various impurities involving transitions metal atoms (such as nickel, cobalt or iron) which affect the electronic properties of the material making them less suitable for semiconductor applications. Also, the presence of metal contamination in HPHT crystal leads to mis-identification using standard thermal tests used in the gem industry. HPHT diamonds test as moissanite in a standard thermal tester and require diamond certification from a gem lab to identify them correctly as lab grown diamond. CVD diamonds have no such detection problems with thermal diamond testers.

915 MHz and 2.45 GHz MPCVD platforms: CVD technique requires the generation of an energetic plasma using microwave or RF sources. Microwave Plasma is the more common technology used for CVD technique. Microwave plasmas can be generated using 915 MHz frequency or 2.45 GHz frequency magnetron sources. 2.45 GHz microwave plasma systems are the most common reactor platforms that are manufactured worldwide. These reactors can generate plasma sizes large enough to grow single crystal in an area not larger than 60 mm. Most of the LGD producers worldwide rely on 2.45 GHz MPCVD reactors running on 6 kW microwave generators. The development of microwave cavities for large area diamond CVD requires plasma reactors that generate a large flat plasma in close contact with the substrate holder where the growth takes place. The main criteria determining reactor performance is the shape and position of the plasma.

915 MHz frequency plasma reactors have the advantage that it is possible to generate large flat plasma on substrates that are more typically 150 mm in diameter and even unto 300 mm in diameter based on the size of the power sources typically from 30 kW and up to 70 kW. The capacity of a 915 MHz reactor is thus much larger than a 2.45 GHz reactor.

While 915 MHz plasma reactors offer greater cost-efficiency in production they are not as commonly used as the 2.45 GHz plasma reactors due to technical challenges relating to process chemistry, substrate holder design, heat dissipation, flexibility in growth rate and related HPHT processing of grown crystals. The current drive towards production efficiency in MPCVD makes 915 MHz reactors more attractive for growers who have the technical know-how to develop processes (recipe design and infrastructure) specifically for these systems.

The 915MHz reactors are the future as the throughputs are much higher but requires expertise during growth and post processing and Serenity is very uniquely positioned to assist. 915 MHz reactors are also perfect for high throughput seed production.

The 2.45GHz reactors are smaller and easy to handle but the throughputs are not very high, and many multiples of reactors are required for high volume production. Serenity has made advances in the 2.45GHz platform and are working on cluster systems that have 5-10 small 2.45GHz chambers running on a single processing central controller for better process control

CVD diamond seeds

and consistency. The 2.45 GHz Cluster setup is ideal for companies seeking to grow production quality large crystal using seeds from 10 mm - 20 mm size to produce finished goods in the 5 - 12 carats range in high color.

Currently many companies in India are opting to procure cheap home-grown copies of small reactors. Such reactors offer a low investment opportunity but do not offer consistent quality, reliability, and reproducibility for high volume production.

As compared to natural diamonds, do LGDs tend to chip and crack? Which is better in this respectHPHT or CVD?

Lab grown diamonds match their mined counterparts in hardness, strength and durability. In fact some lab grown diamonds of the highest purity have properties of hardness, thermal conductivity and electron mobility that are superior to most naturally formed diamonds. Lower clarity diamonds whether mined or lab grown increase the risk that a diamond will crack or chip when exposed to direct, brash impact, due to internal flaws or fractures present in the stone.

For lab grown diamonds the type of seed and growth process can produce crystals that are internally stressed which can lead to challenges during gem cutting of the diamond crystal causing fracturing. CVD crystals generally have more internal stress as compared to HPHT crystal. This can be mitigated by stress reduction techniques after CVD diamond growth is completed.

The importance of seeds in growing diamonds: Starting seed quality is important for the growing of diamonds. Seeds can be of HPHT or CVD origin. Serenity’s focus is on growing large crystals for which CVD seeds are the best starting material.

In fact the main challenge a new grower faces is the lead time in getting delivery of the reactors from these manufacturers based upon the delivery of the key hardware components such as the microwave generator, and magnetrons.

With the shift to India as the key growing center of the world the problem of procuring reactors has evolved into a more complex situation due to numerous companies who have cropped up in India that are manufacturing copies of the typically used reactor platforms developed elsewhere in the world. Today any diamond company can decide to become a grower and shop for the cheapest home-grown reactor setup and demand that it come with a recipe to perform growth. This could lead to failure in the long run. In achieving success as a grower requires attention to not only the reactor setup but also a whole host of other factors such as : the infrastructure, gas delivery systems, cooling systems, reliable hydrogen generation, seed quality, growth recipes, process monitoring and process adjustments during growth runs, post processing of LGD crystals, HPHT/LPHT treatment conditions for whitening of rough . Serenity, with its strong background in materials science and semiconductor process technology has accumulated a wealth of knowledge and IP in diverse fields with application to gem technologies in particular LGDs. There is no need for a new aspiring grower to reinvent the wheel and spend the years required in developing recipes and methods. Serenity is the one-stop technical partner and solution provider for any new diamond grower and can help them get established and reach production scale in a short timeframe thus achieving quick ROI. Procuring a reactor is just a small fraction of what it takes to become a successful grower.

The quality of polish on the starting seed material, and the orientation of the growth surface to the (100) crystallographic plane and presence of point defects at the surface greatly influence the quality of growth achieved. Serenity’s core business does not include supplying diamond seeds to other growers as typically the seed business is more like a one-time business for a grower as most growers focus on developing in-house processes for developing their seed bank to satisfy their production needs.

What are the challenges faced by diamond growers in procuring reactors and developing the perfect growing recipe? How can Serenity help them ?

There are a few established manufacturers of CVD reactors in the world, and it is easy enough to procure reactors from any of these companies.

1 - 3 carat finished diamonds can be grown with seeds of just 7 - 8 mm size. Larger finished diamonds of 5 carats and above require growth of much larger blocks of CVD crystal on seeds greater than 10 mm sizes and more preferably 15 mm size.

DRC : Global leader in Diamond Detection and Traceability solutions.

A brainchild of the softspoken, low profile and proactive Tech Entrepreneur Vipul Sutariya DRC Techno has made life easier for the diamond industry by addressing its pain points. When everyone is talking about traceability, DRC’s innovation the Gem ID machine is designed to provide unique identification of any diamond scanned into its system. In short, it generates an AADHAR CARD for each diamond that it scans.

for the diamond business, particularly in terms of maintaining customer confidence in natural diamonds, as no device was publicly available and no lab offered small diamond detection services.

To restore customer confidence in the natural diamonds business, the DRC team embarked on the task of solving this industry problem. The team began working on the problem-solving mission in 2013.

Within a year, in 2014, theydeveloped the world's first UV spectrum-based lab-grown diamond identification technology. A FREE sorting service from their office premises was launched. So severe was the problem that people waited for hours in a serpentine queue that extended to more than a kilometer.

In 2015, DRC introducedtheir first product, branded "D - Secure," to the market.

Innovative Product launches :

DRC chose The Hong Kong Jewellery and Gem Fair to launch its Diamond detectionmachine.

DRC’s J Smart Pro, J-Mini and J-Detect can identify diamonds grown using the chemical-vapor deposition (CVD) or high-pressure, high-temperature process (HPHT), with the ability to scan loose or mounted goods, 0.003 carats and up and, primarily, in the D-K color range. The machines are designed for the user to make identification conclusions based on diamonds’ phosphorescent and photoluminescent properties.

DRC machines are versatile. They not only detect whether a diamond is mined, or lab created, they also auto detect whether the diamonds are CVD or HPHT. The machine marks the stones accordingly.

There are many machines that cab detect and mark HPHT diamonds. DRC machines can auto detect and mark CVD diamonds too. This is made possible due to the presence of inbuilt long wave fluorescence mechanism. The scanning process, detection and generation of report is done in 45 seconds flat.

Inspiration :

DRC Techno is based in Surat, the global diamond hub. Being a part of the diamond industry Vipul Sutariya was aware of the problems the industry faces. His motto was to help this Industry thrive and function seamlessly and smoothly. DRC was incorporated with the mission to solve the problems ofthe industry through innovative yet affordable technology thatcan help in the growth and ultimately help society to thrive. DRC has a customer base of 200 with a presence in 40 plus countries and a talented team of 70 professionals.

De Beers Group introduced its lab-grown diamond detection machine in 2012. The price of over $70,000 was rather steep even for large manufacturers. It was thus an unaffordable solution in 2012.

Moreover, itwas exclusive to the De Beers sight holders and not for other stakeholders. At that time, there a significant number of lab-grown diamonds were being mixed with mined diamonds in the smaller sized stones.

Vipul realized that if a solution is not found quickly, it would be a major catastrophe for the diamond business, particularly for Indian manufacturers as majority of the small sized diamonds are manufactured in India.

DRC team realized that this would be a significant issue

Prompt After Sales Service : DRC spends very little money on marketing. Most of the new customers have been referred by an existing happy client. It enjoys a strong goodwill and word of mouth. Prompt and efficient service is the foundation that has built their reputation. They have set unmatched service standards globally.

“The heart of a diamond detection machine is the UV source. We procure the UV source from the best manufacturers in the world rather than procuring it from

Vipul Sutariya

J Mini

China though the price difference is substantial. The life of an ordinary UV source is 2 years. Our UV sources lasts for minimum 4 years.Some of our valued customers who have not replaced it since 2016 as they haven’t faced any problem”. Says, Hardik Patel, CEO DRC Techno.

“We sell machines only to those cities that we are able to service. Once we had received an order from Iran where we had no service representative. In this case we routed through a European agent who took the responsibility of After Sales Service.

We have appointed field engineers in Mumbai, New York, London, and otherother centers we have installations.

Aadhar Card for Diamonds :

How does a jewellery manufacturer ensure that the diamonds that he had supplied on memo are the same ones that have been sent back?

How does a retailer ensure that the diamonds studded in the ring that has come for buyback are the same ones that were sold by him?

How can a consumer tell if a jeweller has swapped his diamond?

The answers to the above questions that we invariably get are the certificate from a gemological lab and the girdle inscription.

Unfortunately, both do not provide a conclusive proof of a diamond’s origin.

A few years ago a major scandal was unearthed in the US. Some unscrupulous elements had copied the GIA laser inscription on a mined diamond and got it inscribed on the girdle of a CVD diamond.

Because the CVD had the same properties as a natural diamond andhad the supporting GIA certificate, the fraud was difficult to detect.

This incident provided a fodder for the DRC team to find a solution that led to the launch of Gem ID.

The GemID machine is designed to provide absolute, completely unique identification of any diamond scanned into its system thereby offering consumers complete

confidence that the diamond that they have purchased can be verified after handling by a third party.

GemID technology scans a diamond of any size or shape whether it is loose or mounted in a matter of seconds. It then identifies the unique digital signature of the diamond, like scanning its DNA, before the proprietary technology digitizes the information for universal storage of the encrypted data. Any other user of GemID technology can re-scan the diamond at any time and provide positive identification of the diamond.

Unlike other systems, the technology is easy and fast to use without slowing customer transactions in the sales or service areas. GemID is priced at $4999 (USD) and comes with a comprehensive one-year warranty.

J Smart Pro

Gem ID

Entrepreneurship

Lexus-Octonus GROUP : Pioneers in Diamond Engineering

At the forefront of India’s tech revolution is the Surat based Lexus – Octonus group founded in 1992 by its Directors - Mr. Utpal Mistry and his brothers Mr. Janak and Mr. Kamal. The company along with their PartnersOctonus Group has invented, patented and launched several hi – tech diamond machines. At the core of Lexus group are Artificial Intelligence supported by Human Intelligence (AISHI) and PHYGITAL technologies.

Mr. Anil Prabhakar met Mr. Utpal Mistry at his Surat office. Following are the edited excerpts of the conversation.

I am a proud Surti, I was born in a lower middle-class family where the importance of education was imbibed on to us. I am a gold medalist Electronics engineer from SVNIT. Like most of my batch mates I also wanted to migrate to America and had applied for admission and scholarship in many prestigious universities. My father however, dissuaded me from leaving India. This was really very disappointing for me.

Those were the boom days for professionals in electronics and computer engineering. I therefore started getting offers from the corporate sector.

After working for one year in the R & D department of Essen Computers, I became responsible manager for introducing the First 3.5 inches 1.44 MB Floppy Drive to be supplied to Wipro Computers. I have thus played a role in the development of INDIA’s First 1.44-inch Floppy Drive, in collaboration with TIAC, JAPAN. Later on, I felt cheated by my boss who bypassed me and denied an opportunity of an overseas assignment. He chose one of his sycophants over me.

In a fit of anger, I resigned. My family was shocked as it was considered blasphemous to quit a job, with no alternative offer in hand. But enough was enough and I decided to chart out a new path.

I had no background in the diamond industry. But then I met one gentleman who changed the course of my life. His name was Shivabhai Patel. They were 4 brothers named Bhimjibhai , Shivabhai , Khurjibhai and Youngest Dhirubhai - who had their owned multi acre land popularly known even today as Diamond Nagar at Kamrej Laskana, 25 KM from Surat. They were polishing diamonds for Mafatlal Mehta (fondly known as Mafat Kaka). The Mumbai based Mafat Kaka of Smir diamonds was the legend and one of the biggest names of the diamond industry of those times.

After quitting my job, I set up my first Start-up - computer assembling firm named as DIGILOG computers in year 1991 after 2 years of my graduation. Annual Maintenance Service charges and training were a good start to build relation with clients with a condition to re-pay in case of faulty hard disks.

Due to my computer’s skills, I was called by Mr. Shiva Bhai to Diamond Nagar. I carried out a job of retrofitting a Machine with Electronic circuits for them.

He asked for me to display a Video Image onto his Computer IBM PC-AT that was DOC+S based.

He was keen to commence the development of such a Bruting machine for his captive use, based purely on electrical - electronics control.

Kamal, Janak & Utpal Mistry

He procured for me; all technical components required for the electronics of the machine. Later on, when he asked for even its complete mechanics also to be designed and manufactured, my elder brother Janak joined us and that was the beginning and the foundation of LEXUS group in 1992. We even ordered the most expensive component of that time “Creative's Video Blaster Card” for INR 50K. We worked day and night for manufacturing this machine and successfully completed it and named it AUTOBRUTER. Which was world’s very first computerised automatic Bruting machine.

Growth and Expansion :

With Shivabhai ‘s encouragement and support, we entered the diamond industry.

After we completed our first successful machine, Diamond Nagar wanted to build machines in bulk for them to be marketed under the name of SKUBID electronics. Later on as our market grew exponentially, our younger brother Kamal Mistry also joined us who had his own Mechanical Workshop for job-works .

Later on Octonus Group , Russia and Finland became our partners and then they developed / conceived / invented / partnered several Diamond Processing products that were proudly MADE in INDIA for the Entire Diamond World. Our company LEXUS Group is now an ISO 9001:2015company with our partners / agents in various countries like Belgium. Russia, Finland, Switzerland, South Africa, Botswana & China.

PACOR invented in 1992, by Octonus-Russia was the worlds very first diamond planning system with inclusions plotting through a microscopic lens and laser marking on DOS based computer system.

Our significant innovation was to convert ourAutobruter to windows-based machines when the very first windows 3.1 was introduced by Microsoft.

One of our recent patented products is Digital Adaptive Light Scope (DALS), a powerful microscope that offers reflection-free illumination of the stones under it; and Cut wise Live, a small desktop device that lets jewellers examine and compare diamond’s optical performance under different lighting conditions.

Cutwise Live : Some of the challenges faced by a jeweller are as follows:

1.Trade sellers have no tool to explain diamond performance, to command higher price for better performing diamonds. The only tool available to them is higher discount. 10x loupe observation is sufficient to observe clarity difference between diamonds. But the loupe offers little explanation on how the diamonds look in real life environment.

.A consumer at jewellery showroom is hardly offered any buying experience, which is so critical when they are willing to spend thousands of dollars on a luxury product.

Jewelers have hard time explaining the unique features of a diamond to buyers. It is difficult to explain brilliance, fire or optical symmetry to clients or consumers.

4.Diamond looks different in different seller’s office. So the trade buyer has little trust in purchasing diamond from any office due to past bad experience.

All these challenges can be overcome as Cutwise Online can be used to objectively compare two or more diamonds. the buyers can validate the videos and images they see on screen with the help of CutwiseLive.

DALS : Using DALS, teams from different locations can exchange ideas by sharing the microscope image of the rough, semi-polish, or polish diamonds in real-time without sending the diamond across physically. This facilitates quick decision making.

The sales team can shoot videos to highlight specific features and share them with their team members or online buyers.

GALAHAD COMPASS : It is another revolutionary product developed by Lexus-Octonus Group that has given a huge boost especially to the new diamond cutting centres in the African region, Botswana, Namibia, Angola and South Africa. In layman terms it is a “3D digital printer for a diamond,” or a google map for diamond polishing where

Pacor

Cutwise Live

DALS

the artisan just aligns two dots source and destination to get precise facet angle.

It offers digital assistance so that even novice polishers can exactly produce all 57 facets to obtain a higher yield.

diamonds and diamond simulants. Standard features include:

Colourless to near-colourless diamond identification

NEW: blue-to-green and brown diamond identification

Automatic identification with results in <2 seconds Easy reading result with audio: “Pass” or “Refer” for further testing

Tests both mounted and loose diamonds 0.9mm or greater in diameter (approx. 0.005 carat).

The Gem tester is intended to test colourless to near colourless diamonds. It has a 100% accuracy in referring lab diamonds or diamond simulants. There is approximately a 3% chance a natural diamond may achieve a REFER result

Biraj Shah of Sshri Anugrah Jewels : Every adversity is an Opportunity.

her CUSTOMER FIRST approach she has built a retail business from scratch.

Biraj Shah narrated her story of how a chance meeting at a religious gathering with a lab grown diamond jewellery manufacturer changed her life. Anil Prabhakar

Background :

Two years ago, Biraj had no background whatsoever in Jewellery. She was a property consultant for 13 years before the pandemic affected her business. It did not make sense for her to be in the same profession as her husband Ravi as the business had shrunk. Biraj therefore contemplated diversifying into a new business.

Women have a natural affinity towards jewellery. It occurred to her that there could be an opportunity in the

Biraj Shah

Anugrah Jewels interior view

jewellery industry that led her on a path to discovery. For a religious Vaishnav, regular visits to the temple are a given. On one such visit, Biraj met Rajnikant, a LGD jewellery manufacturer from Surat.

An important discovery :

It was for the first time that she heard about LGDs. The new category aroused her interest. Rajnikant invited her to Surat and educated her on the various aspects of the LGD business. He suggested Biraj to do a market survey before taking a business decision.

“It is not possible for anyone to make out the difference between a mined and created diamond”, Rajnikant told her.

He advised Biraj to test this hypothesis by surveying the market.

Biraj was quick to gauge the business potential that the LGD offered. Women irrespective of their financial status are familiar with gold. They inherit gold and buy gold jewellery for cultural, religious and investment reasons. Women however, have a fascination for diamonds for the simple reason that it is beyond the reach for most middle class women.

During her survey, Biraj posed as a customer. She showed her LGD studded ring to three jewelers, in Borivali, Santacruz and Dadar. She was surprised with the fact none of them could idenitify that the diamonds in the ring were lab created. She was even offered an exchange and buyback offer. One of the jewelers valued the ring at a price higher than what she had paid for.

Distribution :

“All women dream and aspire to own a diamond but a few of them can afford them. LGDs can fulfill the dream of all these women” Said Biraj.

Subsequently, she decided to try her hand and become a distributor with a modest investment of Rs. 5 lakhs.

Biraj spent six months visiting jewelers from Churchgate to Borivali, knocking at their door. Most of the jewelers were ignorant of the category. A few of them who knew about LGDs indulged in undisclosed mixing.

She was appalled by the manner in which most jewelers treat sales persons.

“I was humiliated, insulted and not allowed to meet the owners. In a few instances, I was even asked to get out and stay out of the store”. She said

During her six month stint Biraj observed that most jewelers were sitting on the fence, waiting for others to start retailing with full disclosure. Others resorted to profiteering by undisclosed mixing, thereby taking the customers for a ride.

During her 13 years of journey, she had meticulously built a data base of all the people she had contacted. The first step was to reach out to them. Most of them hadn’t heard about LGDs. While a few showed curiosity, most

Out of all the customers who showed an inclination towards LGDs, only a few showed a willingness to commute to her office. Undeterred, she made door to door visits even for small enquiries such as a nose pin.

Gradually her hard work paid off and she opened a small store in Kandiwali. In the initial stages, she would

leave the piece of jewellery with the consumer for 30 days for trials. When the trial resulted in a sale, she would offer an exchange and buyback facility.

When I asked her about the consumer response and the reservation that they had about LGD, Biraj replied, “In the beginning of my retail journey, I deliberately chose to approach potential customers who were known to me. They had faith in me and so did I. All they wanted was the confidence and backup. I offered them buyback, 30 days trial and later credit facility. I organized educational sessions to bring about the awareness of the lab grown diamonds in good hotels. The consumers appreciated the fact, that a diamond is a diamond, whether mined or grown in a lab”. Consumers started buying small ticket items and came back for repeat purchase of higher value. The word of mouth spread gradually. I now started getting requests for store visits. My store is too small and can accommodate only three people. I therefore made it as a by appointment only store. The customers feel special when they come to Sshri Anugrah jewels and I in turn devote my undivided attention to them”

Wow moments :

“My investment in inventory gradually increased from Rs. 5 lakhs to Rs. 60 lakhs. My average selling price too went up from Rs. 15000 to Rs. 30,000. One of my customers even bought a necklace priced at Rs. 7 lakhs”. Said Biraj with a glint in her eye.

“In two years I have built up a base of 700 happy customers. Most of my customers are middle class men and women from the western suburbs”.

One of the wow moments for us was the visit of Kiku Sharda who is known for his appearances in the Kapil Sharma show. He spent 3 hours in our store understanding LGDs and appreciating our designs.

The road ahead : Going forward, I would like to create and online store to attract new consumers. We would also like to open a bigger store.

Middle class consumers, who are buying a diamond for the first time, have no reservations of talking about their LGDs within their circle of friends. They want others also to possess diamonds.

Wealthy consumers, who already have mined diamonds, buy bigger lab created diamonds as they are less expensive. They would like to flaunt them without disclosing their orign”.

On a concluding note, Biraj shared an interesting anecdote. When she had made up her mind to start her own LGD business, she met her GURUJI to seek his blessings. Her Guruji asked Biraj, “what business are you getting into ?”. Biraj replied,” I am starting my new LGD business”. Her Guruji smiled and replied,” LGD is a product category, what is the purpose of your business?”.

When Biraj replied, “my purpose is to benefit my consumer by helping them fulfill their dreams and aspirations”, Guruji blessed her wholeheartedly.

Shri Anugrah Jewels store facade

Everbrite Jewellery: Fortune favors the brave.

In the Indian jewellery industry, retailing branded jewellery is quite rare. In a landscape where the typical jeweler mindset is not to promote someone else’s brand, a young startup entrepreneur has done something that is unheard of. Mehul Jain, the founder of Everbrite Jewellery – a Lab Grown Diamond Jewellery brand, has set up a network of shop in shops at 10 Indian and 6 American locations within a short span of 2 years. Mehul shared Everbrite’s journey in conversation with Anil Prabhakar

Mehul Jain, the founder of Everbrite Jewellery, is no newcomer in the Gems and Jewellery industry. Having worked with some of the leading industry players in a plethora of roles, Mehul has spent nearly 15 years

Being a longtime tech-geek, his pursuit of knowledge has always extended beyond the classroom. This self-taught coder brought to life various tech platforms. This strong passion for innovation and the drive to bring something truly unique to the table led Mehul to take a deep dive into the art and science of technologically

company, Jewelex. While working there, he spotted a nascent opportunity to build a branded LGD business space in India.

While most players were focusing on the existing US marketspace, Mehul concentrated his efforts on the Indian market, setting up Everbrite Jewellery (EB) in November 2020. Since inception Mehul was clear in his mind – he did not want to join the rat race and thus would avoid the low margin commodity business. His objective was to create a luxury brand of his own in the promising LGD category, one that the masses can resonate with. He opened a small boutique at Opera House to cater to individual consumers and understand their mindset. The choice of location itself is ironical as Panchratna building in Opera House was once the epicenter of Mumbai’s flourishing mined diamond trade before the business shifted to BDB. Panchratna still has offices of diamond merchants, but the scale has come down.

Everbright Shop In Shop at Kalamandir

Mehul Jain

D2C journey :

Everbrite’s D2C push resulted in a good response. In addition to the boutique, creation of an e-commerce enabled website in May 2021, social media presence and participation in consumer exhibitions helped gather eyeballs. It also helped the Everbrite team to understand the consumer requirements and their mindset to accept a new category. Consumers’ soon started sharing screenshots of EB Jewellery from FB and Instagram through WhatsApp, showing intention to purchase and customise jewellery, which was easily converted to repeated purchases.

Mehul’s belief in his product and customer reception of the LGD category got a boost when a friend sent him a picture from Kolhapur of a man carrying an EB bag. Another pleasant surprise and a WOW moment was when he himself spotted a lady in Chennai carrying an EB bag in her hand.

Customization is an integral part of the business. No matter how affordable the jewellery may be, consumers want to see how it looks on them. Besides, sizing is another important element that may require physical trials. Therefore, for a jewellery brand, even though most of the business may happen online, it is essential to have a physical presence. It could be by way of shop in shop, an exclusive boutique or a try at home service. While there are genuine enquiries generated from social media, it may not be possible to offer try at home service in remote areas.

Mehul quickly understood that pure online presence had its limitations and offered Payment On Delivery facility (POD) within 3 months of being in business. The brand soon received a sizable number of enquiries from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab, Assam and south Indian cities such as Chennai, Bangalore, and Coimbatore.

Breakthrough :

In order to grow, a brand needs visibility and a wide geographical reach. Everbrite therefore approached jewelers in Mumbai and nearby cities. Their response was lukewarm due to a host of reasons such as fear of antagonizing the customers, undisclosed mixing of mined and lab grown diamond jewellery, falling inventory prices, etc.

Building a retail network is an uphill task and needs a lot of patience. Everbrite’s perseverance paid off when a leading jeweler from Gujarat agreed for a shop in shop arrangement, after multiple visits from the EB Team. In the initial stages, there was curiosity and eagerness followed by product acceptance. However, it took some time for the retail partner to make up his mind. There’s an interesting anecdote on how a potential customer helped sign the deal.

The retailer’s experience showed that consumers are always looking for novelty, and they decided to test the new concept with a close family friend. Mehul and team were invited to make their case for LGDs. The team carried to Surat and showcased 150 pieces to the retailer’s friend. The family ended up buying 16 jewellery pieces in a single evening.

Co branded visual at Manish Bhindi Jewels

Manish Bhindi store in Rajkot

Thus began the business relationship with the retailer. Similarly, the EB team struck gold in another city. In order to gauge the consumer sentiments towards LGDs, a three-day exhibition was organized at a retailer’s store. Due to the overwhelming consumer response, the team was asked to extend their stay. An agreement was signed on the fourth day!

Simultaneously, Everbrite Jewellery reached out to US retailers as well, where the jewellery is being retailed as branded and the brand hasn’t encouraged WHITE LABEL requests.

“Everbrite has always focused on creating differentiated solitaire jewellery collections. Our core collection comprises of sizes ranging from 40 cents to 1 carat. LGDs should focus on design, adornment and distinctiveness. We’re here to fulfil the aspirations of millions who want to get their hands on diamond jewellery.Affordable luxury should be easily accessible.”. Says Mehul.

“Our objective has always been to build a D2C LGD jewellery brand that is innovative, proactive and profitable. We have therefore adopted a sustainable, profitable and robust business model that delivers results”. He adds.

Jewellery is a very personal long term purchase and being an adornment product, touch and feel are important attributes. Consumers need to be educated about the technology, functionality and aesthetics of this new product category.

It was therefore essential to adopt an omni-channel approach and have a digital as well as physical presence.

While EB’s focus is to build a lasting relationship with the end consumer, their channel jewellery partners play an important role too.Abrand needs to earn their trust by empowering retailers with knowledge, training to their staff, marketing and VM support, which Everbrite happily proffers.

A case for LGD business :

“Our approach to business is different as compared to other startups. For us EARN RATE is more important than BURN RATE. Our emphasis has always been on profitability and I am happy to share the fact that we are a small company with team strength of 15 and Profitable”.

Says Mehul

“Most startups have the backing of fund houses or PE firms and for them volume and scale are more important. Their investors don’t mind cash burn, we however, believe

“We would look at investors who in addition to funds will provide guidance, domain expertise and professionalism”. He adds.

Most jewelers find the breakthrough of lab grown diamond jewellery difficult to understand, appreciate and adopt. Mehul firmly believes that to succeed in LGD business, a retailer needs to bring in financial and emotional capital. A belief in product and its potential backed by resources would definitely yield better results.

Lab grown diamonds are technologically advanced products, and like all tech products, they’re getting updated constantly. Rather than being unduly worried about the rise and drop in diamond prices, the team is focused on catering to the needs of those who want to adorn distinctive diamond jewellery and fulfil their aspirations at affordable prices, as eco-consciously as possible.

Expansion plan: The Everbrite team has chalked out an ambitious expansion plan for the first half of 2023. The brand will soon be available in the states of Madhya Pradesh, New Delhi and West Bengal.

Classic Solitaire Pendant Stacking

Everbrite boutique in Mumbai

Everbrite

Some of the exquisite jewellery pieces from

Show stoppers from Everbrite

Emerald Halo Two tone Bangle Bracelet

Fancy Chandelier Earrings

Classic Round Graduating Necklace

Contemporary Pear Necklace

Smiling Rocks : A reason to smile.

Zulu Ghevariya the CEO and creative director of Smiling Rocks shared his view in an exclusive interview with Lab Grown Times.

1. The LGD industry has been on a roll for the last few years. It would be great if you could share the highlights of the year gone by (2022).

To be honest, this industry is expanding and growing in 360 degrees but at the same time we have seen the flat curve in the industry due to the global economic situation in the 3rd and 4th quarter. I have seen these two quarters were slower than the first 2 quarters of 2022.

2. What is your outlook for the New Year ?

It looks like America has escaped the recession which is great news for the worldwide economy where we don’t expect a big rise but a flat and better economic scenario everyone is expecting. In those conditions when the economy is playing a certain role, luxury will be still the most favorite for everyone. Lab grown diamond is checking many boxes of consumer’s interest, such as the price point, desired carat sizes etc. So I think 2023 is bright for the lab grown diamond industry compared to the mined industry.

generations. Smiling Rocks is a brand they built that promotes the betterment in communities and preserves our mother nature. The company was

Zulu Ghevaria with Co Founder Manish Jiwani

India is one of the largest and potential markets after the US and China as it is holding the largest mid-income consumers (middle class). This is the biggest potential for lab grown diamond as almost every household is available to address the industry. It is definitely able to cater and fill the space for customer’s taste and preference. I can see India is progressing towards introducing lab grown diamonds as retailers are launching independent brands, retailers have started co-existing lab grown diamonds in their existing stock/inventory in their store. Overall, I see that Indian retailers are becoming more positive on lab grown diamonds and they know it is a strong potential market.

come up with a solution/idea to gain more confidence of consumers as the potential of selling lab grown diamonds is still huge and is increasing despite the price. The consumers are still purchasing lab grown diamonds no matter if they have experience or notices the fluctuation in the price. They are seeing the cost comparisons, yet they are still purchasing because the price is not affecting their decision as much due to their love towards these diamonds. Hence the industry also has to look at this point.

5. While the US is currently the biggest market for LGDs, which are the potential markets that are opening up?

Lab grown diamond industry has lots of positive sides but it certainly holds a trigger point within itself in regard to the capacity of accelerating the production which was already foreseen in Day 1 of this industry. The point is that as long as the numbers of growers are increasing, the production capacity increases and the desperation of sales grows compared to its market size. This has driven lots of growers to sell the product at an aggressive price point, which led to hurting market and customer’s sentiments and shook the investor’s interest as the price was the biggest factor affected last year. The industry has seen a sudden downfall in the prices too. This is a challenge the industry has to deal with and collectively

The US is definitely the #1 market today in the world. But I always say LGD is the greatest solution for the mass luxury user countries, especially China and India becoming a top potential market. The European market is aggressively spreading its share in the LGD industry as we have seen a rapid growth in the recent years.

6. The Indian government has identified the LGD industry as an ideal candidate for the Make in India/ Aatmanirbhar program . Please share your thoughts on what support the industry needs from the Govt ?

The Indian government has certainly emphasized and banged on the idea of lab grown diamonds. They are absolutely correct that LGD is the best luxury product the Indian government can address making in India and supporting their Aatmanirbhar Program. The reason is that the diamond is grown, cut and polished in India as it is the largest market in the world and can sell to India's large population. Which means the economy of India is circulated within the country itself and creating job opportunities, lots of opportunity for the industry players and consumers. The industry, in turn, would want the government to subsidize on expanding the growing facilities, create a specific zone in which the whole industry can be backed and collectively run together.

Lab Grown diamonds is a potential product that can be grown using green energy, the government can back up this energy to the businesses which also could fulfill the requirement of the sustainable product line.

4. Please also share the challenges faced by the Industry.

3. What are the opportunities that you have identified in the Indian domestic market ?

Smiling Rocks Jewellery Display Unit

The Indian government can drive the possibility of backing lab grown diamond business more compared to other countries. As other countries would also think of growing diamonds within, hence if the Indian government would like to support the Indian growers, they can think of imposing import duties on lab grown diamonds from outside. This will become more beneficial to the Indian Growers.

7. What are your views on the price wars in the LGD industry ?

As I always say, the lab grown diamond industry is on its teething stage right now. It is just the beginning of the whole industry. There are no set parameters of the pricing or the facilitation mined diamond industry has today. The LGD industry has to find its own way to set the prices. Today, every grower has its own cost; hence the growers are acting in its own benefit. They might not be looking at the consumer sentiments right now with the price fluctuation, but eventually it will affect them as well. I would suggest the growers to start thinking on this point rather than putting their own benefit upfront. The industry will survive, they will as well. If they are damaged by enjoying short profit or gain, the industry will be affected, which we have seen in the last 6 months.

8. The natural diamond industry has been vociferously refuting the claim that LGDs are no more sustainable than mined diamonds. Can you make a point by point case in favour of LGDs ?

Both industries are putting the points against each other on sustainability. I am not saying that the LGD industry is 100% sustainable. It does use electricity generated through fossil fuel and uses a certain amount of energy to grow a diamond. But compared to what? Saying lab

grown diamond is sustainable is not true, but it is earth-friendly, it has lower carbon emission which can be proven by the certificates, checking the power usage for a certain amount of carat to be grown. This is a subject to prove and claim. If the LGD industry is claiming itself to be sustainable, it should put forth accurate points. Sustainability is not a word that can be defined by

solelying looking at the use of energy (or the type of energy), it is a wider subject. The LGD business should put its foot forward and claim other aspects as well such as their ESG+ assessments, how their business is operating etc. The same mined diamond industry can be worked on to claim itself sustainable.

9. Please share your company’s business philosophy and its philanthropic activities.

The New York based premium brand Smiling Rocks was launched in 2019. It aims of building a chain of smiles through sustainable luxury.. The co-founders’ dream is to refashion the industry by offering stunning luxury design collections as a means of making the world a better place. It is working on a philanthropic business where 3% of their jewelry and 1% of loose diamond B2B business goes to 4 different charity sectors, Animal/Wildlife Protection, Medical Support, Education Support and Environmental Protection. Smiling Rocks has a wide range of products from Essentials basics, engagement and bridal jewelry for men and women, fashion collections and high jewelry.

Model sporting Smiling Rocks' exquisite jewellery

A model promoting necklace

SVARAA Jewels – Chahat Shah’s Passion Project

1,00,000 sq. ft of total retail area and a strong team of 650+ passionate staff . The company enjoys the trust of 5lakh happy consumers and has an annual turnover of Rs.2000 crores.

InAugust 2022, Kalamandir launched its first exclusive Lab Ground Diamond Jewellery store Svaraa in Ahmedabad.

Chahat Shah (21) is the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Svaraa Jewels( a Kalamandir partnership). Hw was a bright student in school. He studied at G D Goenka international school in Surat. He wanted to pursue education in the US and on the strength of his SAT and IELTS score got admission in South Carolina. Fate however had other plans for Chahat. The outbreak of Covid 19 prevented him to travel. So at the young of 19, his father Milan Shah advised him to join the family’s retail business in Surat. He spent the first 4 months behind the sales counter to understand the jewellery retail business. Chahat took to sales like a fish to water. There has been no looking back for Chahat ever since. He shared his plan of building a pan India branded chain of Svaraa jewellery stores.

When an owner’s son joins the family business, the first few months are tough. People, who have been working with the organization for a long time, invariably don’t take you seriously until you prove yourself. In order to assert yourself, and seek their cooperation is often tricky. Fortunately, I found that sales and consumer interaction were my strengths. I gained the respect from our team, when I was able to liquidate slow moving inventory (400 pieces) of jewllery imported from Italy. The stocks had not moved for the last three years. I voluntarily set a personal target to liquidate the entire stock in one month.

Rather than offering discounts for the slow-moving designs, I devised an attractive incentive scheme for the sales staff. This worked as a motivator that resulted in the completion of target in record time.

My second initiative was the identification of the corporate sector as a Major Account to generate incremental revenue. We created an independent team to focus on this segment. We identified products that were ideal for gifting and sourced them at attractive prices from vendors. As we bought them in bulk, the vendors supported us. The sales team focused on large, reputed companies in south Gujarat. These companies regularly buy in bulk for gifting to their employees and customers.

Chahat Shah

Team Svaraa

In the very first year we were able to generate a sale of Rs. 15 crores.

We started our retail journey with lab diamonds at our Kalamandir store in Bharuch. We had apprehensions and reservations in our mind about the consumer response. Mehul Jain, the founder of Everbrite has been very supportive. He helped us create an Everbrite Shop in Shop (SIS) at our Bharuch store.

The positive response to the new offering came as a pleasant surprise to us. What worked in our favor was the Kalamandir goodwill that we have built over a period of 36 years. All that the consumer was expecting from us was an assurance. When we extended the buyback and exchange facility to them consumer confidence and sales picked up. The consumer can come to us anytime for the buyback, he is offered a refund of 80% on the price at which he brought the jewellery from us. In case

As a scion of a Bania family, the profit imperative is ingrained in our DNA. We don’t have investor money and hence don’t believe in cash burn or long gestation periods.

Svaraa was launched on 27th August 2022 spread over an area of 1600 square feet. The store is designed by an

Italian architect who was earlier associated with Tiffany. The furniture and fixture are thus imported from Italy.

The encouraging response from Ahmedabad has given us the confidence to roll out two more stores viz; in Surat and in Borivali. By 2025, we plan to open 50 stores in major Indian cities.

At our Kalamandir Surat store, we are creating 3000 sq ft of space exclusively dedicated to LGDs. Everbrite SIS will be housed here. We already have the brand in Kosamba and Bharuch. In the next phase we will have them in Surat and Vapi.

We have yet to embark on the full fledged marketing

of changing their buying habits to favor environmentally-friendly products. A Pew Research Center survey finds Millennials and Gen Z stand out for their high levels of engagement with the issue of climate change.

with a pen and a pencil. These are made of recycled materials. To support sustainability, planting a tree on behalf of the consumers has almost become de rigueur. The Svaraa team motivates their consumers to plant a tree. The Basil diary is embedded with seeds that you can sow and grow the TULSI sapling at home.

Surya Jain of Aupulent : Charting a New Path.

PULEN AU

Jewellery is associated with opulence. I therefore zeroed on the name opulent for our online brand. We wanted to create an aspirational appeal for the brand. Opulent therefore, matched perfectly with our positioning.

Unfortunately the name OPULENT was registered by someone else. After brainstorming within the team, we decided to replace the letter O with AU. AU stands for Aurum. It is the Latin name for gold and AU is the symbol for Aurum. The name Aupulent thus helped us break the online clutter and get noticed.

Because of the innovative name and designs, we received an encouraging response. We have a team of designers who are creating designs that resonate with the tastes of our young target audience.

We are at a nascent stage and are taking baby steps towards creating an omni channel presence. In the next three years, we would like to have a brick and mortar store.

I was born in a traditional family of jewelers from Punjab. Nikkamal Baburam Jewellers is our parent company, based in Ludhiana. . In the nineties my father shifted his base to Chandigarh to start his independent retail business. Like most traditional businesses, the emphasis was on operations and on maximising profits. My parents however, never discouraged me from trying out new things..

I completed my degree in computer engineering and headed to the US to pursue MBA/ Masters in management from Harvard University. After spending some time in Boston, I moved back to India in 2015.

Physical stores have a limited reach and opening multiple stores in a wider geographical area is both expensive and time consuming.

I wanted to do things differently within the Jewellery business and started evaluating opportunities in the online space.

I closely studied D2C players such as Caratlane, Bluestone and Mellora.

It was during 2018/ 2019, that I came across an article on LGDs. This aroused my interest in the category.

The consumer acceptance of LGds in the US market made me consider this business opportunity. It was clear to me that the new business wouldn’t fit in the family’s traditional jewellery retail business.

I therefore, firmed up a plan for starting an online jewellery business that led to the launch of Aupulent.

The LGD category in India is new. There is a lot of curiosity in the minds of young millenials about lab diamonds. We are taking conscious efforts to reach out and educate the consumers who visit our online store. We do this by closely monitoring the online traffic to our website. Our team members make phone calls, video calls and do home visits to show the jewellery and explain them about LGDs. This is beginning to show results and the consumer acceptance is reflected in increasing conversion rates.

In the beginning of our online journey, we used to get 50 unique visitors every week. Our marketing and PR initiatives have resulted in this number going up multifold. We now get 700 to 1000 unique visitors every day. The conversion rate is around 2% and we are currently doing 250 transactions every month. The number of visitors increases during festivals such as Diwali and Christmas. A consumer makes at least three online visits before making a purchase decision. We follow up by engaging the consumers on whatsApp as well as zoom calls.

Majority of our sales transactions take place from tier 1 towns. We have recently witnessed transactions from cities such as Jaipur, Bhubaneshwar, Indore and Panipat also. These transactions reinforce our confidence in the category and our designs.

We sometimes face a logistical challenge when it comes to delivering a product to remote locations.

I remember a wow moment in our business journey when we received an order for solitaire studs worth Rs.5.5 lakhs. This is the highest ticket price that we have registered so far. It took us a long time

The Harvard educated Surya Jain born in a traditional jeweller’s family is well on his way to create an aspirational millennial LGD brand. He shared his journey in a conversation with Anil Prabhakar.

Surya Jain

(40days) to engage with the consumer, handhold him

The customer lived in a remote place near Mysore. This pin code was not serviceable. We therefore delivered the product to Bangalore. One of our associates travelled to Mysore to personally deliver the product to the customer at his home. Investment in time and resources was worth the effort.

In addition to the usual digital marketing techniques, we also engage the consumers by curating unique experiential events. Rather than engaging the services of a celebrity, we invite REAL women achievers from different walks of life such as interior designers, doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants and so on. These women act as micro influencers. We create a campaign featuring them. These events give an opportunity to real women to narrate their stories and make a style statement as they get an opportunity to flaunt their jewellery. We get an access and an opportunity to interact with their followers who emulate them.

In order to spread our network of customers wider,

where there is a good customer traffic. Banquet halls and hotels are the alternative venues. We encourage prominent people to act as our anchors and invite their close circle of friends and extended family members for these shows. The idea is to educate the consumers about LGDs and to promote brand Aupulent.

We have created a design bank of 1200 SKUs. Out of these 600 are listed on our website. In order to add an element of freshness, we shuffle the designs. Invariably an interested customer, will ask us to show us more variety. Our design bank comes in handy at such times. Our design team is abreast of the global trends. They follow these trends and keep introducing new designs.

As profitability is important in our business, we manufacture the jewellery ourselves. We also have an arrangement with a Surat based grower for sourcing of HPHT as well as CVD diamonds.

We look forward to the Valentine’s day as jewellery is the most preferred gifting option.

Lab-Diamond Sales Grow amidst falling Prices

Lab-grown diamond jewelry demand grew an estimated 38% to $12B in 2022, however like-for-like prices retreated by an estimated 20% –a trend that likely continues into 2023 -

By Paul Zimnisk

Going into 2023, the swift momentum of lab-diamond demand growth continues, however, so does a trend of softer prices.

In 2022, more and more retailers, especially in the U.S., inventoried the product, which has led to much wider-scale downstream distribution of lab-grown diamond jewelry. Notably, U.S. major Signet Jewelers and global fashion jewelry powerhouse Pandora led the charge.

The former, which is the largest diamond jewelry retailer in North America, said that it would “really lean into” lab-created diamonds in early-2022; the latter, which is world’s largest vertically-integrated fashion jewelry company, debuted a novel line of lab-diamond jewelry later in the year targeting its U.S.market.

Signet is selling lab-diamonds side-by-side with natural diamonds in its primary banners, which include, Kay Jewelers, Zales, JamesAllen and now Blue Nile, which it acquired in September 2022. Prior to the acquisition, Blue Nile exclusively sold Lightbox-branded lab-diamonds marketed as non-bridal “fashion” jewelry.

Paul Zimnisky, CFA is a leading global diamond industry analyst based in the New York City metro area specializing in global diamond supply/demand fundamentals and the companies operating within the industry.

His research and analysis on the diamond industry, which includes natural as well as lab-grown diamonds, is used by financial institutions, management consulting firms, private and public corporations, governments, intergovernmental organizations and universities including: HSBC, UBS, Scotiabank, Fidelity Investments, KPMG, Deloitte, Boston Consulting Group, De Beers, Rio Tinto, Tiffany & Co., Cartier, The International Monetary Fund and the governments of Canada, South Africa and Botswana.

Paul is a regular contributor to industry-leading trade journals and he is often interviewed and quoted by prominent media outlets including: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, The Financial Times, Bloomberg, The Economist, Vogue, The Globe and Mail, Agence France-Presse, The Times of India, The South China Morning Post, Xinhua and China Daily.

Paul is a graduate of the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business with a Bachelor of Science in finance. He is a CFA® charterholder and is a member of the CFA Society of New York.

He can be reached at paul@paulzimnisky.com, http://www.paulzimnisky.com/ or +1-917-806-4555 and followed on Twitter at @paulzimnisky.

Pandora is exclusively selling lab-diamonds, however, diamonds as a category is a new foray for the company which is known for its lower price-point charm bracelets and related jewelry. Priorto the debut of the diamond line, Pandora’s average order value (AOV) was estimated at under $100.

Globally it is estimated that lab-diamond jewelry sales grew to almost $12 billion in 2022, up a steep 38% year-over-year (see above chart). For context, this is up from under $1 billion as recently as 2016.

Notably, in 2022, lab-diamond jewelry surpassed the 10% mark of total global diamond jewelry sales for the first time.

This figure is expected to expand as lab-diamond jewelry sales are forecasted to continue growing at an annual double-digit percentage rate in the coming years. That said, in the medium and longer term,

Paul Zimnisky

lab-grown diamond sales as a percentage of natural diamond sales will likely become less relevant.

It is important to remember that lab-diamonds are creating incremental demand for diamond jewelry that would otherwise not exist especially at the lower-price points.

Looking longer-term, this incremental demand will likely continue to grow while the share of lab-diamonds directly cannibalizing natural diamond sales will stabilize and level-off.

Product marketing by both natural and lab-diamond producers as well as product positioning by retailers at the jewelry counter will ultimately determine the level of segregation of the two products and the speed at which the bifurcation plays out.

However, as the price point between natural and lab-diamonds continues to widen, consumer’s intuitive perception of the two products is also likely to naturally diverge –as at the end of the day, diamond jewelry is a luxury/discretionary purchase often driven by emotion or feeling, i.e. the economic concept of diamonds being a “Veblen good” is at play.

lab-diamond producers as the government attempts to boost its current account deficit via export industries.

India and China, combined, are estimated to account for almost three-quarters of global lab-diamond jewelry production by volume.

The (declining) price of lab-diamonds as a material will continue to be a primary driving force for how the product is represented longer-term.

In terms of jewelry, a lower price point could discourage retailers from offering the product as an alternative to a traditional (solitaire) natural diamond out of fear oftop-linerevenue destruction.

However, a lower lab-diamond price point also increases the creative flexibility of the product from a jewelry design perspective.

For instance, a natural diamond is considered too valuable to be cut into low-yielding “exotic” shapes, whereas this is not nearly as much a problem with lab-diamond. Further, lab-diamonds can be produced in chemical variations and colors not found in nature by altering the production “recipe.”

The current dynamic of rising demand for lab-diamonds but falling prices seems counterintuitive for the jewelry

As recently as 2016, a 1-carat lab-diamond sold for only 10% less than an equivalent natural diamond; by the end of 2022, the differential had widened to as much as 80% (see above chart).

The global production capacity of lab-diamonds has exploded in recent years and it is expected that the trend will likely continue for at least the next few years. This dynamic has boosted the supply and pressured prices of lab-diamonds.

Recent new production capacity has been driven by declining capital equipment and production costs as well as growing investment capital availability.

For instance, according to anecdotes, off-the-shelf Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) machines can currently be acquired in India for under $100,000 —the compares to as much as $300,000 as recently as 2019.

Further, the Indian government is developing subsidies and capital equipment financing incentives for new

Consumer trends that will shape 2023.

By Sandeep Goyal

At another level, customer control on spending has been identified as the top trend for 2023 by Shopify. Their consumer tracking shows a shifting consumer need towards tools and methods that allow tracking of personal spending more accurately and in real time.

“Embedded payments” – paying with a single click will become the norm in the days ahead ------ which means probable decrease in use of credit cards, debit cards, digital wallets and even cash.

So, companies will need to strengthen offerings that use stored customer data and information, such that the transactions are simple, secure, and safe.

Ad Guru Dr. Sandeep Goyal is the bestselling author of several books and the Managing Director of Rediffusion. He has been in the advertising and media business for thirty-six years. He has worked at ad agencies JWT, Grey, Mudra, and Rediffusion. He was Group CEO of Zee Telefilms and Chairman of Dentsu India. He has been on the governing bodies of the Advertising Standards Council of India, the Advertising Agencies Association of India, and the Indian Broadcasting Foundation. He is currently Chief Mentor of the Indian Institute of Human Brands. A gold medalist in English literature, Goyal has a PhD and an MBA from FMS Delhi and is also an alumnus of Harvard Business School.

So, what is likely to be the number one consumer trend for 2023? If research by Metrigy is to be believed, it will be customer experience (CX) – with massive increase in technology spends, and 65% of companies hiking up outlays by as much as 24% to keep customers engaged and happy, what pray is CX ? Well, it is best defined as “streamlining tools, interfaces and platforms and reducing friction around giving customers what they want”. So, there will be enhanced focus on digital and like websites, social media and chatbots, as also the metaverse and augmented reality (AR) to deliver speed, convenience, ease of use and customer friendly service in the year ahead.

Related to this is the exponential increase in demand that we may witness for “try before you buy” AR experiences. More people will want to shop online if they could virtually tray a product before buying it. The biggest drawback of online shopping has always been the inability of consumers to touch, feel and try a product.

So, simulating an in- store shopping experience online will become critical. Indian retailer have much to learn from the likes of L’Oreal’s virtual makeup experience in the US, launched in 2019, which has effectively doubled website engagement time and tripled conversion rates. Simply put, products with interactiveAR content will get a much higher conversion rate than products without AR.

Rising prices and increase in the cost of living may mean that consumers will resort to multiple measures to mitigate the cost spiral---- starting with driving less by shopping online or closer home. They may also use more coupons and stock up when items are on sale. Some may proactively look for stores with lower price tags; others may shift to lower priced store brands and private labels. Inflation may become a key determinant and driver of consumer behavior in 2023.

India is no different. Astudy on the movie-going habits recently pointed to the fact that adverse or poor reviews on the release of a new film turned off 84% of potential viewers. No wonder that film critics are demi-gods in Bollywood. Globally, consumers read at least six reviews before purchasing a product. That trend is emulated, by and large, in India too. There is inalienable data to show that people who interact with online reviews convert at a 25% higher rate. And this is not just limited to pure e commerce goods. Consumers today read online reviews for local businesses too. Reviews, in fact, help in discovering local businesses- the modern-day equivalent of good old neighborhood word-of-mouth feedback.

Which brings me to a very important trend –recommerce. Recommerce or “reverse” commerce is nothing but the sale of previously owned goods.

“Pre-owned” cars have been a big category for time now in India. With most auto brands having a dedicated retail channel to cater to customers who would like to buy a secondhand car because of mainly cost considerations (though overseas, sustainability is a bigger driver of recommerce because of increasing preference for reuse, recycle and resell).

Traditionally books have been a substantial recommerce product. But in current times, pre-owned mobiles are emerging as a huge category. Gurdeep Singh, previously chief operating officer of Aircel, was an early pioneer in this space. He started to recondition and sell mobiles in a big way about five years ago. Today his brand Blynk is a market leader by far, with sales revenues that are truly impressive. Online clothing resale too will surely grow by leaps and bounds in the times to come.

Interestingly,

one consumer trend that is gaining massive momentum is online reviews and will surely get amplified in 2023. More and more consumers read online reviews before purchasing a product.

Dr. Sandeep Goyal

Resale, rental, and subscription models will all be brought into play. During a recent trip to Punjab, I saw many boards of rentals of wedding lehengas! A true sign of the times to come – why waste a big pot of money on an item that is largely a one event use? More sensible perhaps to just “recommerce” and not feel guilty of needlessly spending on a short aperture luxury, even if it

is for once-in-a-lifetime celebration.

The customer is getting smarter, more realistic and more prudent with every passing day.

2023 will have its opportunities and rewards. Just need to zoom in focus.

(This piece was previously published in the Business Standard newspaper and is being reprinted with permission from Sandeep Goyal).

attendance surpassed the pre-pandemic figures with the queue for Visitor Badges extending to more than an hour.

Owing to the excellent holiday season, the mindset was very optimistic and the industry players were all enthusiastic to travel after two years of restrictions. The show this year was all about driving a proactive strategy for connecting with global trade.

Vicenzaoro has always been a showcase of trends for

The manufacturers too were happy with the quality of the meetings and the number of footfalls. Moreover, this time the buyer's selections were very focused, and they were interested in exploring and accepting new thoughts and trends.

Vicenza Oro is definitely a hub of reference for the Jewellery sector and a unique platform and opportunity to develop new clients and relationships.

Nootan Thawai Named Director of Production and Services for Gemological Science International

18 January 2023(Mumbai, India) : Gemological Science International (GSI), one of the largest gemological organizations in the world and a global leader in diamond and jewelry certification, announced today that Nootan Thawai has been named Director of Production and Services for the organization.

Ms Thawai, who joined GSI in 2011, has held several positions within GSI as the organization expanded within India and globally. In her new role, Ms. Thawai will be responsible for all production and services related to export activities. She will continue to supervise and manage production and service teams in GSI India, Hong Kong, Dubai, Israel and will work closely with the leadership teams to create new processes and procedures as GSI continues to expand its reach globally.

“I congratulate Nootan for this well-deserved promotion and I am confident that with her experience and leadership GSI will continue to thrive and expand its services globally” says Debbie Azar, President and Co-Founder of GSI. “The majority of GSI’s leadership are women, embodying GSI’s commitment to inclusive

executive culture. We support women across all segments of the business, further strengthening our commitment to empowering women across our value

For more information, please visit www.gemscience.net or

Gemological Science International (GSI) is the only major gemological organization established in the 21st century. Founded in 2005 in New York City, it has grown to become one of the largest gemological entities in the world with laboratory facilities spanning four continents. Utilizing cutting-edge processes and proprietary technologies, along with a commitment to the highest ethical standards and practices, GSI provides manufacturers and retailers globally with a wide range of gemstone identification and grading services. The company is committed to advancing gemological research and offers gemological educational programs for trade professionals and the general public through its state-of-the-art research center.

Nootan Thawai

Growth-oriented and progressive that is aimed to boost consumption and inclusion. The Gem and Jewellery sector is dominated by MSME and support to MSME sector along with enhancement of credit guarantee scheme will provide much needed relief to the sector. The new slabs of taxes will further help boost consumption, thus providing more impetus to economic growth.

The following are the salient features that will have a positive impact on the Lab Grown Diamond Industry:

on imports, a Research and Development grant will be provide to one of the IITs for a period of 5 years.

To reduce the cost of production a reduction of customs duty on LGD seeds is proposed.

India is a global leader in the cutting and polishing of mined diamonds, with the depletion in the deposits of natural diamonds, the industry is moving towards lab grown diamonds and it holds huge promise.

To seize the opportunity, it is proposed to reduce the basic import duty on seeds used for the manufacture of lab diamonds. The import duty which was 5% earlier, will now be abolished and brought down to NIL.

The following GREEN initiatives in the budget provisions are favorable to the sector as it has been identified as environment friendly.

The FM reinforced India’s commitment to sustainable development and green growth. The Budget emphasized on the need to reduce the carbon intensity of the economy through green fuel and green vehicles. Labeling ‘Green Growth’ as one of the Saptarishis guiding us through the Amrit Kaal, the Budget sounds promising for accelerating India’s journey towards its

The Govt of India has identified the LGD industry as an innovation and technology driven emerging sector. The industry has a high potential to generate employment.

Lab diamonds are environment friendly and have optically and chemically the same property as mined diamonds.

To encourage the indigenous production of LGD seeds and machines and to reduce the dependence

IIT Madras selected to receive Grant of Rs. 242 Cr for undertaking research on Lab Grown Diamonds in Budget 2023

Lab Grown Diamonds (InCent-LGD) at IIT Madras was identified for this prestigious project based on our nearly two decades of work experience in diamond research wherein we have developed many technologies for industry, space and defense sectors. We are honored to contribute to the initiatives of the Government of India to boost Research and Development efforts in Diamond growth to make India #1 country in producing good quality diamond crystals.”

Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) will be provided a grant of Rs. 242 Crore over a period of five years to undertake research on Lab Grown Diamonds (LGD). This research will be focused on driving indigenization of the LGD manufacturing process.

Presenting the Budget 2023 on Wednesday (1st Feb 2023), Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Hon’ble Finance Minister, Government of India, said, “Lab grown Diamonds (LGD) is a technology and innovation-driven emerging sector with high employment potential. These environment-friendly diamonds have optically and chemically the same properties as natural diamonds. To encourage indigenous production of LGD seeds and machines and to reduce import dependency, a research and development grant will be provided to one of the IITs for five years.”

As per a recommendation made by Department of Commerce, the research grant of Rs. 242 crore over a period of five years to IIT Madras has been approved. Thanking the Hon’ble Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said, “This is indeed the right time to set up a diamond factory in India, given that diamonds have thermal and electrical properties making it superior to contemporary technologies like silicon, silicon carbide and gallium nitride. IIT Madras will work towards producing diamond wafers suitable for electronic applications. It is a historic moment for IIT Madras for being selected for implementation of such an important project, output of which will be a crucial component of Atmanirbhar Bharat.”

The research grants will go towards various departments and research groups of the Institute that are involved in this field. IIT Madras has a rich history of undertaking cutting-edge and translational research with significant applications in industry and society.

Elaborating on the work that would be taken up under this initiative, Prof. MS Ramachandra Rao, Department of Physics, IIT Madras, who will be the Principal Investigator for this initiative, said, “The India Centre for

Further, Prof. MS Ramachandra Rao, also the faculty-lead of MSRC (Materials Science Research Centre), NFMTC (Nano-Functional Materials Technology Centre) and QuCenDiEM (Quantum Centre for Diamond and Emergent Materials) at IIT Madras added, “The growing demand for lab-grown diamonds requires dedicated research to realise not only gem-quality diamonds but also to realise a plethora of electronic applications (5G/6G, magnetometry, thermal management, sensors and quantum technologies). The science and technology of diamond growth processes are complicated to understand, and most of the machines, especially HPHT (High Pressure High Temperature), are imported in India. Moreover, the reactor manufacturers do not provide recipes to realise single crystal diamonds.”

The global diamond market demands bigger and high pure lab-grown diamond crystals for commercial and electronic applications. There is a need for research and development to conduct systematic studies to optimize the process parameters to grow high pure large-volume and scalable diamond crystals, which will help India to become the world leader in lab-grown diamonds.

The Core faculty from Physics, Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering departments of IIT Madras also have a good number of core researchers with expertise in various requirements listed above The upcoming centre will also recruit a good number of additional man-power to run the research on LGD that would be established at the IIT Madras Research Park and IIT Madras laboratories.

India has no know-how in high pressure high temperature (HPHT) technology to grow and treat diamond crystals. The cost involved in importing HPHT machines is very high. Therefore, there is a need for developing indigenously built HPHT equipment and establishing the process know-how of HPHT diamond growth. On the other hand, CVD reactor manufacturers in India import critical components like microwave generators, vacuum pumps, and sensors. Even good-quality diamond seeds are imported. There is a need for indigenously developing these critical components, technologies, and seed substrates (mother-seed) to make India self-sustainable in the lab-grown diamond sector. This is the requirement that the IIT Madras Research Group headed out to tackle.

GIA Laboratory-Grown Diamond Report - Dossier at a Lower Cost

laboratory-grown

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA), the leading gemmological grading and identification organisation, is now offering a lower-cost GIA Laboratory-Grown Diamond Report - Dossier. The revised report will no longer include the growth method or post-growth treatments, reducing fees for the service. For example, the revised report for a 1-carat laboratory-grown diamond will cost US$55, down from US$85. The report will continue to include the full 4Cs of Diamond Quality specifications and will now be available for laboratory-grown diamonds of 0.15 carats to a new upper range of 3.99 carats.

“This cost-effective report aligns with our goal of increasing the number of laboratory-grown diamonds with GIA reports in the market to protect consumers and ensure their trust in gems and jewellery,” said GIA President and CEO Susan Jacques. “We are tailoring our reports to focus on the information consumers and retailers find most important – the 4Cs and whether the diamond is natural or laboratory-grown.”

GIA will continue to include growth method, post-growth treatments and a plotted clarity diagram in the GIA Laboratory-Grown Diamond Report. This service is for loose, D-to-Z laboratory-grown diamonds weighing 0.15 carats or more. All laboratory-grown diamonds submitted to GIA are laser-inscribed with the GIA report number and the words "LABORATORY-GROWN" to ensure that consumers can differentiate them from natural diamonds. All GIA reports for laboratory-grown diamonds will continue to be available in digital-only formats. The updated fee schedule is available on GIA.edu.

GIA is now offering a revised, lower-cost GIA Laboratory-Grown Diamond Report – Dossier for

diamonds of 0.15 carats to a new upper range of 3.99 carats.

TFR – The world’s first online marketplace for lab grown diamond jewellery was recently referred by Forbes magazine as the New Farfetch of LGDs. The Future Rocks, founded in Hong Kong by co-founders, Ray Cheng and Anthony Tsang specialises in eco-friendly jewellery and supports a circular economy driven by ethical and transparent business practices.

TFR began its journey last year, with 123 SKUs and six brands has now added many more partners and SKUs. Some of the partner brands include, the Chanel backed Courbet based in Paris’ Place Vendôme , w Japanese label Terra, Prmal (also Japanese that makes only hand crafted jewellery), Loyal.e Paris, Maren from Germany, Unsaid and London based, Monarc. TFR onboards only those brands that use lab diamonds and recycled metals. TFR currently ships to 24 countries is available in English, Japanese and Korean language.

TFR’s target customers are Millennials and Gen-Z, consumers for whom sustainability matters a lot. They are similar in profile to Patagonia consumers who are willing to pay a premium for products that use recycled and ecofriendly materials.

Jewllery is one product category where, look, touch and

feel are very important. It is therefore essential for a brand to interact face to face with its customers. With the intention of educating the Japanese consumers about lab diamonds and sustainability, TFR launched its POP up store in collaboration with Tokyo’s luxury department store Isetan Shinjuku from 6th to 17th January.

“Japan is a global trendsetter that prides itself on tradition and culture while embracing new concepts and ways of thinking. At TFR, we have deep respect for craftsmanship, while fully embracing technology to innovate and cultivate active engagement that opens doors and bridges cultures. We are thrilled and honored for the opportunity to work with Isetan, and we appreciate their recognition of our vision for the future of jewelry.”

- Ray Cheng, Co-founder & Chief Design Officer.

In 2023 TFR team looks forward to more experiential activations around Tokyo and New York City, from pop-ups to exclusive launches that will allow Japanese and international audiences to get up close and personal with The Future Rocks, and to connect emotionally with the jewels.

The world’s first global online market place for Lab Grown Diamond jewellery launches its first POP up in Tokyo.

Delhi, with 18 chapters covering different geographical regions of India.FLO represents over 8000 women entrepreneurs and professionals.With over 37 years of experience, FLO has been promoting entrepreneurship and professional excellence among women through workshops, seminars, conferences, training, and capacity building programs etc.The objective of the organization is to encourage and facilitate women to showcase their talents, skills, experiences and energies across sectors and verticals of the economy, for a truly inclusive economic growth trajectory. For a better understanding of Lab Grown Diamond manufacturing and the scope of women’s employment in this technical sector, a FICCI FLO delegation made a visit to Greenlab Diamond LLP, the largest cultivator of diamonds in the world. The team visited the

They received an orientation on various aspects of the Lab Grown Diamond growing processing and marketing

Greenlab LLP’s Green Building (listed under USGBC) drew a lot of attention and admiration from the visitors. The name Green symbolizes the company’s philosophy of cultivating green diamonds in a green, eco friendly and sustainable environment. Greenlab LLP draws its electricity from renewable energy. The company’s efforts in water conservation and zero waste management were much appreciated by the visiting team. Along with the manufacturing technology, the group explores how a manufacturing unit is built up and run in a systematic and sustainable way by carrying the company’s mission of “an affordable luxury in a sustainable way”.

“Economic freedom is very important for women’s empowerment. They must be partners in economic development also. I have seen that women are very good at adapting to latest technology. We should link women and technology up-gradation.” - Prime Minister,

Sanket Patel, Director Greenlab LLP with FICCI FLO delegates

All India Gem & Jewellery Domestic Council Installation Ceremony of Committee of Administration (COA) 2023-24

Mumbai, January 30, 2023:The Installation ceremony of Committee of Administration (COA) of India’s prestigious gems and jewellery industry body the All India Gem and Jewellery Domestic Council (GJC) concluded successfully on 29th January 2023 at Hotel St Regis, Mumbai

Attended by more than 200 prominent jewellers from across India, Mr. Saiyam Mehra the New Chairman of GJC and Mr Rajesh Rokde, Vice Chairman GJC took official charge of this prestigious body.MrAshish Pethe in a glittering felicitation ceremony held in St. Regis at Mumbai will continue as the Immediate Past Chairman of GJC.

Mr. Ashish Pethe, Immediate Past Chairman, said, “It was two years back when I took an oath of the office of COA in Goa. Now, the time has come to hand over Chairmanship to Mr. Saiyam Mehra. I hope, I have done justice to the task entrusted to me. I thank my entire board for reposing faith in me and giving me the privilege to lead this august organisation,”

Mr Pethe thanked past Chairmen, Nitin Khandelwal, Ashok Minawala, Bachraj Bamalwa, Vinod Hayagriv, GV Sreedhar, Haresh Soni and IPC during his tenure, Anantha Padmanaban for extending phenomenal support and pushing him to deliver more.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Saiyam Mehra, ChairmanGJC said, “Speaking on the occasion, Mr Mehra said, “I am thankful to the entire COA for having faith in me to lead this prestigious organization as its Chairman. As the chairman of GJC, I shall continue the legacy of my predecessors and strive for the betterment of the entire gems and jewellery fraternity. I shall endorse the COA's vision and address the interest of all our esteemed members through activating each zone with the formation of zone-wise committees that will take care of zonal activities".

He further added, "My priority goal is and follow up with the government on issues that benefits the industry. I shall also try to bring the entire industry on one platform Mr Mehra further quipped, "Our motto is to protect, promote and progress. Additionally, I shall work hard to educate the new generation about fair trade practices by

conducting Labham, create new business opportunities to increase contribution to the country’s GDP."

The GJC has already sent its Union Budget expectations and its COA aggressively dedicate time towards the Council’s motto of Protect, Promote and Progress. As the youngest chairman of GJC, Mr. Mehra stressed working together and achieving this goal for the betterment of the entire gems and jewellery industry.

Mr. Rajesh Rokde, Vice Chairman GJC, said, “I thank the COA for such a great honour given to me. As a Vice Chairman, I shall shoulder the big responsibility of the GJC and try to put in my 100 per cent to serve the industry. I shall work hand in hand with the Chairman Mr Mehra and other COAmembers to elevate the industry to the next level,”

The event concluded with the installation of the entire COA for the year 2023-24.

About GJC

TheAll India Gem and Jewellery Domestic Council (GJC) represents over 6,00,000 players comprising manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, distributors, laboratories, gemologists, designers and allied services to the domestic Gems & Jewellery industry. The Council functions with the objective to address the industry, its functioning and its cause with a 360° approach to promote and progress its growth, while protecting the industry's interests. GJC, since the last 17 years, has been serving as a bridge between the government and the trade by undertaking various initiatives on behalf of and for the industry.

Committee of Administration Members

From left to right : Immediate Past Chairman, Ashish Pethe, Chairman Saiyam Mehra & Vice Chairman Rajesh Rokde

Ashish Pethe

Rajesh Rokde

Saiyam Mehra

From left to right : Madan Kothari, Rajesh Rokde, Siddharth Sawansukha, Ashish Pethe, Rupesh Tambi & Saiyam Mehra

Lab Grown Diamond Times is pleased to congratulate all the GJC conveners

Brands & The Brain: How to use Neuroscience To Create Impactful Brands.

There are two ways of wealth creation. One is the short term volume approach and the other is value based long term investment approach. Brands create long term value. India’s Gem & Jewellery sector has created wealth based on its manufacturing prowess and thus adopted the former approach. I recommend this book to everyone as it has a wonderful framework of Brand Operating Priciples or BOPs that help understand the concept of Brands and how they create value.

neuron system in the brain is thought to drive this behaviour from a very early age. Powerful brands create their own self-reinforcing cycle through imitation. Imitation makes us feel secure. It is one of the bases of influencer marketing. Imitating a key influencer whom we like by using the same brand or the brand that they endorse increases serotonin and oxytocin. We feel part of a collective.

Arvind Sahay is professor of marketing and international business; Prof. M.N. Vora Chair in marketing and entrepreneurship; chair, India Gold Policy Centre; chair, marketing area; and chair, NSE Centre for Behavioral Science at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. Prof. Sahay completed his PhD from the University of Texas, Austin. He obtained his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, and he also holds a degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.

We live in the digital age where social media is playing an important role in our lives. Prof. Arvind Sahay’s Brain Operating Principle # 5 explains how and why social media works and why inflencer marketing works. Here are the edited excerpts: Brain Operating Principle #5 (BOP#5) Human brains are designed to mirror, to conform socially with others, to interact with people, animals, objects around us. We tend to do what others around us are doing.We imitate. We copy. We are wired to connect—to humans, to objects, to machines and also to brands. The mirror

A chance incident during an experiment led scientists to the discovery of mirror neurons in the brains of monkeys. A monkey that was observing another monkey eat a banana started to show increased activity in the F5 area of its brain, the same area that the other monkey was using to actually eat! The neurons in the F5 area of the brain of the monkey watching the other monkey eat were called mirror neurons. Humans are thought to have a mirror neuron system (MNS) rather than localized mirror neurons. These neurons, speculated to be present in the human inferior frontal cortex and superior parietal lobe, fire up both when we see an individual carrying out an action and when we carry out the same action. Although the MNS is not fully understood, it is theorized that it is this system that enables us to understand others’ intentions, learn actions, empathize, imitate (even unconsciously) and mimic actions. Some even suggest that it is engaged in self-awareness and consciousness. Consider a typical social scenario. The popularity of Facebook and Instagram had everyone flocking to these platforms, sharing similar kinds of photos and posts, and holding mundane and trivial conversations, often with semi-strangers. The now-normal standards of social media have been achieved through acts of mimicry and a very human instinct to try and fit in. The MNS pushed us to conform with the established social standards and to ‘imitate’ the actions of friends by opening a social media account and posting content that was very similar to that of the people connected to us through the account. Facebook doesn’t come with instructions about the content we need to post, and yet, most of us don’t take chances lest we stand out in the crowd and appear ‘non-conformist’.

Arvind Sahay

Publisher : Penguin Business

Jab Tak Hai Grover It’s not over DOGLAPAN : The Hard Truth About Life And Start – Ups.

This is the unfettered story of Ashneer Grover-the favourite and misunderstood poster boy of Start-up India.Raw, gut-wrenching in its honesty and completely from the heart; this is storytelling at its finest. A young boy with a 'refugee' tag growing up in Delhi's Malviya Nagar outpaces his circumstances by becoming a rank-holder at the pinnacle of academic excellence in India-IIT Delhi. He goes on to do an MBA from the hallowed halls of IIM Ahmedabad, builds a career as an investment banker at Kotak Investment Banking and AmEx, and is pivotal in the making of two unicorns-Grofers, as CFO, and BharatPe, as co-founder. As a judge on the popular TV show Shark Tank India, Ashneer becomes a household name even as his life turns upside down. Controversy, media spotlight, garrulous social media chatter descend, making it difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.

on the reality TV show Shark Tank India.

After his outster from BharatPe, Ashneer Grover is in the news again. He posted this message from his LinkedIn account: Let's get some work done in 2023! We at Third Unicorn have been quietly and peacefully building a market shaking business. Boot strapped! Without limelight! And we are doing things differently. Very differently! So if you want to be part of the next TODU - FODU thing, here's a sneak peek on HOW we are building ! WHAT we are building remains the billion dollar question!

In his recruitment ad he has promised to aspiring candidates a Mercedes, if they complete five years in his new venture.

5 Saal Poore Hone Pe Mercedes – Shercedes Gratuity to Bezzati Ke liye hoti hai…..

Ashneer is a strong personal brand.And a strong brand always polarizes people. Ashneer has many followers from his Shark Tank days where he reportedly used to charge Rs.10 lakh per episode.

Doglapan is a well written and engaging memoir of a middle class guy from Malaviya Nagar. It traces the trials and tribulations, rise and fall of a technocrat entrepreneur.

What is interesting is the fact that during his halcyon daya at Kotak, Ashneer honed his skills as a fund raiser for clients like Anchor Electricals, Rustomjee and HDIL. He was also involved as a team member during Reliance Power and DLF IPOs. He later moved on to American Express. He describes his stint there as, “American sarkar ki Naukri” and says that MNC culture is far more relaxed than our LALAculture. He decided to move on as there was no fire anywhwere, including in most people’s bellies, Kahin Koi Aag nahi lagi thi

Before the start of his successful entrepreneurial journey at BharatPe, Ashneer briefly worked for Balram Garg at P C Jewellers.

He was wary of working with a LALAbut he was offered a fixed salary of Rs.85 lakhs plus Rs. 3 crores in stocks. Ashneer saw intrinsic value in the gold loan business and he wanted to learn from a Baniya Lala how to create a profitable business using customers. He helped to digitize PC Jewellers’ core retail business. After trading at an all time high of Rs.400, PC Jewellers’ stock started coming down due to the Nirav Modi scam. Ashneer has high regards for Balram Garg as he stood by him when the chips were down. Ashneer says, “Dukandar wali Kahani PCJ se shuru hui thi – it was at PCJ that I understood the problem statement of a shopkeeper and the mentality of a Baniya businessman”. This insight was most helpful during the launch of BharatPe.

The last 50 pages of the book deal with Ashneer’s downfall. He plays the victim card here and admits that the worst mistakes that he made were in recruiting 4 people at BharatPe who betrayed him.

I found it rather surprising that the former SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar’s name appears in the list. Rajnish Kumar has had an illustrious career and is highly regarded in the baking circles. How can he be Ahneer’s bête noir? Well there are two sides to every story !

Indian businessman Ashneer Grover is the former co-founder and managing director of the Indian fintech company BharatPe. Grover also appears as an investor

Publisher : Penguin Business

Smiling Rocks

Svaraa

The Future Rocks

Svaraa

Evaglow

Smiling Rocks

Svaraa

Svaraa Smiling Rocks

Gratitude Is An Attitude

The January issue of Lab Grown Diamond Times, print edition was launched during IIJS Signature at the hands of Edahn Golan, Smit Patel & Shreyance Shah. We are humbled by the overwhelming response received for the issue on Sustainability. Please keep writing to us on how we can improve with each passing month. Thank you very much.

Mr Viswanath of Wondr Diamonds

Arvind Patel, Chairman SLTL group

Ashish Diyora

Prof Arvind Sahay of IIM Ahmedabad

Kautil Patel

Nirali Kalsara

Brilliant White Team

Dr Snehal Patel Dungrani & Prakash Bhanderi

Babu bhai Vaghani of Nilkanth Exports with his team mates

Rajesh & Harshil Limbasiya of Janvi LGD

Dhaval Diyora

Shashvat Sadhani

Palak Shah & Re Vera Team

Sanket, Miraj and Vipul bhai Patel of Greenlab LLP

Need for introduction of a distinct Harmonized (HS) Code for HPHT (High-Pressure High Temperature) diamond Category.

Therefore, it would be the initial stage to segregate the HS Codes for HPHTs & CVDs. We have to note that we are on a spree to grow more CVDs. While all those rough HPHTs are being imported! Therefore, with the help of a separate HS code, we have to focus on boosting our local producers of CVDs under the Vocal for Local concept policy rather than boosting HPHTs under the LGDs HS Code.

2: A tab on the imports of CVDs:

To amplify the Vocal for Local concept and extend supportive hands to homegrown CVDs, we suggest putting a tab on the imports of rough & polished CVDs by imposing import taxes & duties. A duty on wild CVDs import is meant to attract a 5% & 10% levy on polished CVDs import.

3: Tab on polished HPHTs:

Compiled by : Ms Reena Shukla Director - Lab-Grown Diamond and jewellery Promotion Council

That significant leap in 2019 distinguished Mined Diamond & Laboratory Grown Diamond (LGD). Currently, LGDs have been categorized as HS Code 7104 2100 for Rough LGDs & 7104 9100 for Cut & Polished LGDs. Further, the LGD industry is drawing attention to the micro classification in the LGD category. Three significant points,

1: A distinct HS Code for HPHT

2: A tab on the imports of CVDs,

3: An account of polished HPHTs.

1: A distinct HS Code for HPHT:

The manufacturing process of those LGDs is classified into two because of their manufacturing system & features, i: HPHT & ii: CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition). Here, we must distinguish a Harmonized (HS) Code for HPHT & CVDs.

China has adopted those HPHTs widely while the rest of the global market, including the USA & India, has accepted the modern and precise way to grow LGDs. India contributes around 15% in the worldwide production of lab-grown diamonds are CVDs, as we have an installation of tools & machinery for HPHTs diamond manufacturing.

Looking at the present scenario, it is estimated that more than 4500 reactors of CVDs are currently installed. About 3000 reactors are running on average, producing 300,000 carats of Rough CVD Lab Grown Diamonds and providing livelihood to about 100,000 skilled and semi-skilled labourers.

Out of every 100 diamond-cutting & polishing artisans in the globe, 94 are Indians. India is full of diamond cutting & polishing artisans; therefore, we suggest encouraging rough HPHTs rather than polished ones! Let every rough HPHTs get cut & polished by our local artisans. Therefore, no levy on rough HPHTs imports, while polished HPHTs could attract a 10% import duty.

Aatmanirbhar Bharat