Bangalore: Bangalore-based online jewellery store Bluestone.com has raised $5 million in funding from Accel Partners, Silicon Valley Bank, and K Ganesh, Founder of TutorVista. The company plans to use the fund for increasing its design offerings and provide international quality products to the Indian customer.

“We will aggressively build our operational capability to support the kind of scale we intend to achieve and also continue to build technology and user experience to create as close a real life experience, short of touch and feel,” says Vidya Nataraj Co-Founder, Bluestone.com.

Bluestone was founded in mid 2011 by Vidya Nataraj and Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, with an aim to bring together timeless jewellery, crafter with the right blend of age and elegance, to provide a comprehensive collection at affordable rates.

Vidya feels that there is a growing demand for branded lightweight diamond jewellery and the online jewellery retail, which is at a nascent stage is poised to grow is what interested the VCs to invest in the company. She also feels that since the team has experience in jewellery, technology, and online marketing, the company was able to pose itself as a profitable category to the investors.

The 30 people strong company targets trendy and evolved Indian men and women who want international designs and high fashion in precious jewellery at great value. It feels that the domestic jewellery sector in India is more than 1,00,000 crores. Though the online market is at a nascent stage, the trade numbers are around 250-300 crores, and is expected to grow at 100 percent per year. It estimates that the closest competition would be the pure play online retailer caratlane.com.

Prior to co-founding Bluestone, Vidya was a Senior Consultant at Price Waterhouse Coopers, the Head of Music at Landmark, and a Securitisation Analyst at Barclays Capital. She pursued her MBA from INSEAD, and did her B.Sc., Mathematics from University of Warwick.

Accel Partners is a venture capital firm which supports entrepreneurs possessing unique insight to define new categories and build world-class companies. Its famous portfolio companies include Facebook, Veritas Software, RealNetworks, Riverbed, MetroPCS, Macromedia, and many others.

Silicon Valley Bank helps entrepreneurs and enterprising companies with its diversified financial services in technology and life science companies, venture capital and private equity firms. It has over $19 billion in total assets and more than 1,500 employees worldwide. It is a subsidiary of SVB Financial Group, a member of the FDIC and Federal Reserve System. Its portfolio companies include Prizm, Innovalight, Clearleap, FlightCaster, and many others.