Assertion Supported
Sacheti: Titan's 2018 99-crore primary round carried a punitive valuation
“Over a period of time, Titan then did a secondary in sorry, another primary in 2018. They put 99 crores in the company, and we were really shafted on that valuation. And that cost me a lot at that point.”
Disclosure
Sacheti: CaratLane resolved never to raise outside capital again after 2018
“I made it a point that we will not raise money ever again.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Feb 2028
CaratLane targets ₹10,000 crore revenue and 20% EBIT margin in five years
“Oh no, I think we have set ourselves five years, 10,000 crores. I mean, I think more than a billion dollars, unless the rupee further depreciates and goes in that direction. But yeah, and a 20% EBIT business is a long-term healthy business, you know, so we wan…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
CaratLane achieves 25% annual customer repeat rate vs 4% industry average
“And that, which is the average of industries, four percent, we are now at 25% repeat rate. And so, 25% of our lifetime customers will shop again this year.”
Assertion Contradicted
Sacheti: CaratLane is already India's largest D2C business
“I would love to see this become India's largest direct to consumer business. I mean, sorry, world's largest direct to consumer business. India's largest we already are.”
Assertion Supported
Sacheti: India produces 90% of global diamonds but captures 8% of margins
“Nine out of 10 diamonds sold in the world are made in India. But we capture only eight percent of gross margin of the world.”
Assertion Partly supported
Sacheti: Tiger Global exited CaratLane around 570 crores in a flat round
“The harder task was to convince Tiger to leave because they just put in money. Right at that point. And they, and it was a slight, I mean, they came at 600, it was five 70. The currency fluctuation had hurt them. So they had to exit at possibly a flat round at…”
Opinion
Sacheti: Tata executives sometimes struggle with tough decisions by being too nice
“I think there are also many things you learn what not to do, because in being nice, they also get so caught up that sometimes they're super nice and they don't know how to make tough decisions on that.”
Opinion
Sacheti: The gold loan market is terrible due to crazy interest rates
“Gold loan, if you look at it, is such a, is a terrible market because while it is so easy to cash, the interest rates are crazy.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sacheti: CaratLane pioneered design-led jewelry at affordable price points
“What we were first at for sure is that we introduced designs at a price point where people didn't consider creating design.”
Opinion
Sacheti: CaratLane was a market maker rather than a disruptor
“So if you see our biggest contribution maybe to the jewelry business is that we've been market makers more than people who are going after market share on that part. And I think market share guys are a bit more disruptors. Market makers, I feel are cooler than…”
Insight
Sacheti: Indian plain gold jewelry is 70% investment and 30% adornment
“The largest piece of the jewelry market is the plain gold jewelry business. That's an area which is the largest piece, and we frankly don't even exist in it yet. This is where people for years have invested in gold. They haven't looked at this adornment alone.…”
Assertion Supported
Sacheti: The jewelry sector accounts for 2% to 2.5% of India's GDP
“And if you take all of India, and I'm not getting into fine jewelry and fashion jewelry and all of that, but if you take all of India, we make up about two to two and a half percent of this country's GDP, which is a very large part.”
Assertion Supported
Sacheti: Indian jewelry spending as a share of GDP is 5x to 8x global average
“The beauty of this country, and you know, I'll give you a stat of this two, two and a half percent of GDP for the rest of the world, global average is .3. Okay. To .5. So we are five X to, you know, eight X of this number.”
Disclosure
Sacheti: Started CaratLane with four-year, 75-lakh family stop-loss deal
“So I had to convince my family that give me four years of my life and let's agree on a bunch of money as stop loss. So time and money became a stop loss. We agreed on that. And with that philosophy of four years and 75 lakhs of investment, we agreed to sort of…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sacheti: B2B partnership with Titan funded CaratLane until Tiger Global's 2011 investment
“And that once took on, and then, you know, we trained about, the pilot was 12 stores, supposed to be one year, but instead of in two months, it became 50 stores. We really built a robust cash flow for ourselves. And that's where the cash kept coming in, that w…”
Assertion Supported
Sacheti: CaratLane raised $6M from Tiger Global skipping early rounds
“Six million. We didn't raise Seed or Angel or Series A. We just didn't do much of that stuff because of this Titan cash flow that we were doing.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sacheti: CaratLane built its early business on a 53-day payment float
“They would pay us in seven days and we would pay the vendors in 60 days. So that 53 days of free cash flow that we created, we built our business on that.”
Assertion Supported
Sacheti: CaratLane was valued at 570 crore INR in 2016 Titan buyout
“570 crores to be precise.”
Assertion Supported
Sacheti: Tiger Global held a 62% stake in CaratLane before Titan buyout
“They owned 62% of the business then, so.”
Assertion Supported
Sacheti: Titan's initial CaratLane entry was 100% secondary without primary capital
“And Titan only did a secondary, no primary. Yeah. They didn't put any money in the business.”
Insight
Sacheti: Strategic partners will not teach founders how to run their businesses
“You walk into a relationship with a business sometimes thinking way too much of what you'll get as opposed to what's realistically possible because they have their own business to run. They don't open a school, right, to come and teach me how to run my busines…”
Disclosure
Sacheti: Titan financed my buyout of CaratLane's co-founder
“Thanks to Titan. They lent me the money to buy him out. They would have obviously liked me to have more skin in the game.”
Assertion Partly supported
Sacheti: CaratLane is doing ₹2,300 crore revenue and ₹200 crore profit
“We will do about 2300 crores somewhere on that in revenue. 10% EBIT as a business. 200 crores in profit.”
