TrueFacet, an online marketplace for luxury jewelry, today announced a $1.7 million seed round.
The New York-based company is a graduate of the most recent Techstars Seattle class and raised its seed round from Maveron, Trilogy, Founder’s Co-op, Howard Lindzon at Social Leverage, TiE Angels Group Seattle, and several top angel investors.
TrueFacet provides an online marketplace and authentication process for users to buy and sell luxury jewelry and watches. The company had one of our favorite pitches at the Techstars Seattle Demo Day this past November.
“When I spent over eight years in the jewelry industry, I noticed every single day when people were shopping and selling pre-owned jewelry, they did not know if they were getting an authentic item or a great price,” TrueFacet CEO Tirath Kamdar said during his pitch. “We built TrueFacet to solve this and have done over $280,000 in gross market sales in our first six months alone. Today, I’m going to tell you why we are going to be the winners in this $70 billion jewelry space.”
TrueFacet grew its revenue by 20 percent each month in 2014 and saw a 4X spike in sales during the holidays. The company discounts prices by up to 70 percent off retail and said more than 15 percent of its customers have made two or more purchases. TrueFacet also lets people sell jewelry on its site, and pays the seller up to 80 percent of the resale value.
“Coming from a family of jewelers and spending the past decade as a digital executive, Tirath has the ideal background to build the world’s next great jewelry business,” Jason Stoffer, General Partner at Maveron, said in a statement. “We believe Tirath and his team have the vision to truly transform a huge resale jewelry market from a generations old analog business into a 21st century technology-enabled marketplace.”
TrueFacet had previously raised $118,000 in funding from Techstars. Learn more about the company with our Startup Spotlight.
