Titan to conclude Caratlane acquisition in a month

Titan Company has said the all-cash acquisition of online jewellery portal Caratlane would be concluded within a month’s time.
According to a report in PTI: “Currently, valuation exercise is on. We hope to conclude the transaction in a month’s time. It will be an all-cash deal,” Managing Director, Titan, Bhaskar Bhat said.
He said after negotiations the company would finalise the stake. “We will hold in excess of 51 per cent, but exact stake will be finalised later,” he said.
Declining to share details of future plans, Bhat said, “We will share details of our future plans on Caratlane after the acquisition is complete.”
Carat Lane Trading, owner of online jeweller Caratlane, had raised Rs 185 crore from US hedge fund Tiger Global, in 2015.
The acquisition marks the exit for Tiger Global, which has invested several rounds of funding into Caratlane, from the company.
One of the most active venture investors in the country till last year, Tiger Global had pumped in over US$50 million in Caratlane in tranches, according to VCCEdge, the data research platform of VCCircle.
Formed in 2008, Caratlane deals in gold, silver and diamond jewellery, selling it online. It was founded by Srinivasa Gopalan, an IT entrepreneur who was the founder and CEO of Lister Technologies, and Mithun Sacheti, scion of Jaipur Gems, which has stores in Mumbai, Chennai and Coimbatore.
Over the years, the two have worked relentlessly to seamlessly integrate Omnichannel capabilities and have successfully added 13 physical stores across India in addition to their robust online business. The company has plans to ramp up the retail stores significantly in the future.
Caratlane operates in an omni-channel approach with 13 offline stores in Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Thane and Pune.
Apart from an Omnichannel initiative, the company has also kept up with new technology. On August 20, 2015 CaratLane launched an app that uses facial recognition and 3D imaging technology to allow customers virtually try on the earrings available on their site.This app can be downloaded on to any smart device.