Entrepreneurship often thrives on bold reinvention — and that’s exactly what Ankur and Aditi Daga are doing with Angara, their US-based online jewellery brand that’s turning heads with its focus on coloured gemstones and lab-grown diamonds.Founded in 2005, Angara has quietly grown into a $100-million revenue company, and now has its sights set on hitting a billion dollars by 2030. Having just launched operations in India, the company aims to make the country a cornerstone of its global growth strategy.
In a conversation with CNBC-TV18, Ankur Daga, Co-Founder and CEO of Angara, and Aditi Daga, Co-Founder, open up about their unconventional journey — from turning away from their centuries-old family jewellery legacies to building an e-commerce brand that’s challenging the dominance of diamonds and redefining how jewellery is bought online.
Here are edited excerpts from the interview.Q: Both of your families have been in the gems and jewellery business for centuries. You didn’t want to do anything with the jewellery business, but yet in 2005 both of you decided to start Angara. What happened there?Ankur Daga: I think our stories are slightly different. Aditi has always loved jewellery. I grew up watching my dad in the wholesale gemstone business. I thought it was a sleepy, antiquated business and never really wanted to get involved. But life, of course, comes full circle.My first real experience with jewellery was in college. A kind of crazy story, Ratan Tata came to speak at our campus at Wharton. He mentioned he was taking a train to New York, so I went to the station to catch him. I introduced myself and told him that when I travel from Delhi to Jaipur, I often get stuck behind TATA trucks, and the exhaust makes me sick. I asked him if he could do something about it. We chatted briefly, and he asked for my details. When he returned to India, he wrote me a letter saying, “Next time you’re in Bombay, let’s meet.” It was insane.So, I went to Bombay, and we had a three-hour conversation. He suggested I visit Tanishq and share my thoughts. That was my first brush with jewellery retail, and I was blown away, organised retail, incredible potential. After that, I joined McKinsey, and one of my longest projects was with Tanishq in India. That’s when I knew this was the future. Life came full circle.Q: So, Tanishq inspired the Angara story?Ankur Daga: That’s right.Q: Aditi, what did you think when he decided this was what he wanted to do?Aditi Daga: The next time he says he’s never doing something, I’m going to bet against him! He had said he’d never join the jewellery industry, clearly, I learned my lesson.Q: Had you ever considered joining the jewellery business yourself?Aditi Daga: Not initially, but I’ve always loved jewellery. I don’t even know when that love began, maybe as a child, visiting temples and seeing the deities glowing with ornaments, or watching my mom decked up during the holidays. I’m one of four sisters, and we always used to dig into her jewellery box before an occasion.My dad designed jewellery passionately, and I remember my grandfather ensuring every custom piece was perfect, old school attention to detail. His brothers were charming, building lifelong relationships with customers. It felt like a treasure trove. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the desire to scale that legacy was always there. When Ankur and I met and decided to build something together, all the pieces came together.Q: You met and got married at 22. It was an arranged match?Ankur Daga: Yes, we were introduced. It took me two months to believe someone could be so perfect. I must’ve used up all my karma points from previous lives, I went all in. Luckily, she said yes, and I’m incredibly thankful.Q: And you’ve grown together, from marriage at 22 to building a $100 million company with aspirations for a billion by 2030. What has that journey been like?Aditi Daga: It’s been amazing. We grew up together. We went to grad school together, started this company together, shared disappointments and successes. We love working together, but we also pursue our passions independently. That balance, growing independently and together, has been key.Q: Let’s talk about starting up. The gems and jewellery business is in your blood, but actually starting a company in 2005, and choosing to bootstrap instead of raising venture capital, that was shaped by a friend’s bad experience?Ankur Daga: Yes, one of my best friends raised venture capital. Everything went well for four years until the 2008–09 crash. Things changed overnight. He sold the company, but the board removed him. I never wanted to go through that.Our vision was a 50-year journey, not a five-year build-and-flip model. VCs work on 5–10-year cycles, which didn’t align with our goals. Honestly, I’d have been fired in the first two years if we’d had VCs because I did everything wrong.We raised some industry capital early on and hired great people without product-market fit. We burned through a lot of cash with very little sales. We tried everything, diamonds, coloured stones, multiple product categories. We were attacking too much with limited capital.The talent we hired, ex-De Beers, ex-LVMH, was amazing but not right for an early-stage company with no revenue. We burned through 90% of our capital quickly and we were four months from running out of cash.Then, a few crucial changes happened: we shifted all operations from New York to India, cutting costs by 90%. We focused entirely on coloured gemstones. Suddenly, things started to click. Our team in India was all in, 24/7. That focus is something we still strive for today. But yes, we still have PTSD from that time. That’s why we’ve raised no further capital. We’ll grow organically and reach a billion dollars without external funding.Q: Many of those decisions, moving to India, focusing on coloured gemstones, weren’t strategic at first. They were born out of necessity. Looking back, that shift to gemstones was a pivotal moment. What drove that choice?Aditi Daga: Listening to the customer. That was key. Customers would call and say, “We love the design, but can we get a bigger carat weight?” or “Can we get higher quality?” We got enough calls like that, and we knew we had something.We pioneered the “Good, Better, Best, Heirloom” model. No one else was doing that. We offered different qualities, sizes, and metals. So, no matter who you were, if you liked our design sensibility, we had something for you. That’s what helped us take off.Q: Selling jewellery online back then was tough, trust is everything in this business. In India, e-commerce itself took years to gain traction. When you put your business plan together, how concerned were you about customer acceptance?Ankur Daga: The numbers on our Excel sheets were super exciting. In reality, not so much.Back in 2005, only 2% of jewellery in the US was sold online, but it was growing at 50% annually. We always wanted to focus on coloured stones. Aditi’s family had been in the business for 300 years, and back then, it was all about colour. For hundreds of years, coloured stones dominated studded jewellery. We wanted to bring that back.My parents were in the wholesale gemstone trade, so I saw the potential.Q: Why do you think we lost on the coloured side of story?Ankur Daga: It is because of De Beers, “A Diamond is Forever”, was arguably the greatest marketing campaign of all time. Since 1947, that single idea, two months’ salary for a flawless diamond engagement ring, redefined success and romance.And suddenly coloured stones went from industry mainstay to just 10%. So, we were like can we revive that? But it was much easier said than done. If e-commerce was 2%, colour stones are at 10%, that’s 0.2% of the market. That is what we were dealing with and we were trying to build an entire category from scratch. It was a gargantuan task that took a lot of time, effort, and luck.Q: What levers did you pull to take on the De Beers of the world and reclaim share?Aditi Daga: Education was critical. No one really knew about the different qualities of gemstones. In India, for instance, when someone says “opal,” it might be Ethiopian Opal, which looks beautiful at first but fades with exposure to water. Australian Opal, on the other hand, retains its brilliance.So, we had to educate customers, what’s good, what’s better, what’s best. Every product page included explanations. What does each quality mean? That transparency built trust.In e-commerce, reviews are pivotal. It took time and effort, but building that trust made a huge difference.Q: When did you feel you had survived the storm and could begin scaling?Ankur Daga: 2010 was the turning point. We became cash flow positive and recommitted to coloured stones. That’s when we realised we had something.The awareness back then was so low, even at Tiffany’s on Fifth Avenue, you’d only see a few sapphire rings. So, we had to show customers the full world of gemstone jewellery.Back then, Google and search were the primary ways to get traffic. Someone had to search “sapphire engagement ring” for us to appear. But because we were the only ones in the space, competition was low. And so, the cost per click was low. That made the economics work, and we started growing fast.
