Meet Mumbai Entrepreneur Who Started Lab-Grown Diamond Jewellery Brand By Partnering With India’s Leading Gold Platform

What do diamonds speak of? Luxury, shine, and an elegance that completely wraps the owner. They’re dainty, fancy, and everything beautiful.

But you know what’s not fancy? The lives of miners who relentlessly work in unsafe conditions to mine diamonds. What’s also not fancy is the kind of environmental damage that natural diamonds bring with them.

Lab-grown diamonds, on the other hand, solve all the above problems while maintaining the luxury and beauty aspect of diamonds.

They’re exactly the same in cut, clarity, authenticity, and shine as natural diamonds.

“Lab-grown diamonds are a sustainable and conscious move in the fine jewellery market. When you truly understand that they’re the same as natural diamonds, you’ll wonder why you were paying humongous amounts of money for something that is available in the exact shape, size, quality, and shine,” Namita Kothari, founder of Akoirah by Augmont, tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview.

Founded in 2023 and based in Mumbai, Akoirah is a lab-grown diamond jewellery brand that has adopted an affordable-luxury positioning with prices ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 10 lakh and above.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Hailing from a humble Marwari family, Namita Kothari graduated with a B.Com degree from Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics.

After college, she started her career as a certified preschool educator. Here, she eventually led a team of 28 teachers in a comprehensive early learning program.

Namita’s entrepreneurial quest led her to London to study etiquette and grooming. Later, she started grooming classes for children and young adults. She also established a book and toy library by the name of School of Etiquette.

“After this brief experience with entrepreneurship, my natural flair for design got me fascinated with lab-grown diamonds,” Namita tells Startup Pedia.

While obtaining formal diamond training and understanding the intricacies of lab-grown diamond innovation, she recognized a gap: a lab-grown brand that is trusted, legacy-led, design-led, and ethically conscious was missing in the market.

“It was not as if lab-grown diamond brands didn't exist. They did. But as a consumer and entrepreneur, both, I saw that the industry grappled with a trust deficit. Customers were unsure about the diamonds’ authenticity, value, and resale potential,” she says.

Namita recognized that building trust in the lab-grown diamond space required more than just product innovation – it needed legacy credibility.

She set out to create a brand that was not only design-driven but backed by a company with years of market experience and consumer trust.

Seeing an opportunity to scale, she decided to collaborate with her husband, Ketan Kothari, Director at Augmont — one of India’s most trusted and fully integrated gold platforms, known for its offerings in digital gold, gold SIPs, and loans.

For Namita, partnering with a legacy brand like Augmont was the natural choice, combining her creative vision with Augmont’s credibility and scale.

“I decided that there could be no better option than Augmont when it comes to legacy. At the time, the company was also looking to enter the lab-grown diamond space,” Namita shares.

Augmont decided to invest Rs 100 crore in Akoirah.

“With Augmont’s strategic support, we were able to quickly bring Akoirah’s vision to reality, ensuring every aspect-from research and development to design-met the highest standards of quality and innovation,” she adds.

With this, Akoirah by Augmont was launched in October 2023. Its first store was set up in Pune.

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EARLY JOURNEY AND CHALLENGES

Initially, startup founder Namita Kothari struggled with driving education and awareness around lab-grown diamonds.

“Many people still doubt if lab-grown diamonds are as valuable as mined diamonds. Jewellery by itself is a high-investment and emotional category, so being pushy does not work. You have to establish trust layer by layer,” she says.

Then there were the challenges of attracting first-time buyers like Gen Z and millennials who look for clear value along with beautiful designs.

Akoirah decided to navigate these by:

• Through in-store guidance, social media content, and brand messaging, the lab-grown diamond brand focused on an education-first storytelling style.

“This approach helped us (and continues to help us) to simplify the science of lab-grown diamonds and position them as ethical, accessible, and value-driven,” entrepreneur Namita Kothari expresses.

• The backing by Augmont helped initial customers get over their hesitation.
• At Akoirah, Namita introduced consumer-centric initiatives like free insurance, 100% buyback, and flexible investment schemes that make the purchase feel secure and smart.

“The challenge of changing consumer mindsets and bringing a paradigm shift in the diamond industry isn't a one-time effort. It's an ongoing task for us. At Akoirah, we embrace this as an opportunity to lead the narrative around lab-grown diamonds in India with credibility, creativity, and consistency,” Namita Kothari says.

Akoirah also made it a point to begin steering people away from the belief that diamonds are just for weddings and important occasions.

“Akoirah focuses on everyday wear, self-expression, and conscious luxury. Why wait for a special event to be able to wear something that speaks to you on an innate level?” she remarks.

Apart from this, the lab-grown diamond brand collaborated with stylists and influencers who work in the spaces of sustainability, individuality, and new-age fashion. They created and released content that drove aspiration through relatability.

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AKOIRAH BY AUGMONT: QUIET LUXURY DIAMONDS FOR EVERYDAY USE

Today, Akoirah by Augmont operates as an affordable-premium lab-grown diamond jewellery brand that offers trust, transparency, and trendsetting designs.

Namita oversees Akoirah’s jewellery design and artwork personally, conceptualizing each piece to ensure it meets her exacting standards.

The brand’s collections are produced through exclusive OEM partners, who manufacture the pieces according to her designs and specifications.

Unlike newer brands in the space, Akoirah is backed by Augmont’s Rs 100 crore investment. This backing signals confidence to not just customers but also partners.

Akoirah offers free insurance on every purchase made from them. This adds another layer of trust and safety in the consumers’ minds.

“Akoirah also has extremely flexible investment schemes that start at a tenure of five months. Additionally, we offer 100% exchange and buyback policies. Everything has been systematically set up with a consumer-oriented angle,” entrepreneur Namita Kothari shares.

To further the brand’s conscious sustainability ethic, Akoirah has jewellery pieces made using love-grown (patented for lab-grown diamonds and recycled gold) diamonds.

Akoirah offers lab-grown diamond jewellery in the price range of Rs 10,000 to Rs 10 lakh and above. This makes it accessible for first-time buyers as well as those looking for high-value, occasion-driven pieces.

From waist chains to earrings, rings, bracelets, and neck pieces, Akoirah has a wide range of lab-grown diamond jewellery product categories.

With an affordable-luxury positioning, Akoirah plans to have an omnichannel presence across physical stores in India and online mediums like its website.

Soon, it plans to partner with leading online marketplaces to improve access to greater, bigger demographics and geographies in India.

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GROWTH AND FUTURE

Even though Akoirah is a relatively newer brand that has not yet disclosed its revenue, it has scaled to 2 physical stores in India (Mumbai and Pune).

In the next three years, the lab-grown diamond brand has a target of opening 100 stores across metropolitan cities in India.

While the lab-grown diamond jewellery brand began with a core team of just 3 people, it has now expanded to 11 team members looking after sales, retail, logistics, design, and customer service.

According to startup founder Namita Kothari, Akoirah is on track to close FY25 with “strong double-digit growth” which is driven by retail expansion and consumer loyalty.

The lab-grown jewellery brand has designed an aggressive retail expansion strategy. Soon, it will also expand on online marketplaces to amp up its digital presence.

Akoirah’s pieces have been spotted on celebrities like Mandira Bedi and Ahsaas Channa.

“Akoirah by Augmont is not just a jewellery brand. It's a movement that will redefine luxury for India's conscious consumers. We are coming in with strong certification and purity to plug all gaps in the lab-grown diamond industry. The vision is to make love-grown diamonds a global symbol of sustainable elegance. And that's exactly what my team and I work tirelessly for,” Namita Kothari signs off. 

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