Titan plans to invest in CaratLane

Titan, an arm of the conglomerate Tata Group plans to invest in online jewellery platform CaratLane, and is furthering this with talks, reports say. Negotiations are in the advanced stages for Titan to invest $30 million (Rs 187 crore) and acquire a 15 percent equity stake in the company, reports add.

Currently, CaratLane has raised $50 million in total, with stakeholders including Tiger Global, Srinivasa Gopalan, CEO of Lister Technologies, Mithun Sacheti and his brother. Pursuant to round D in play, the exiting investors' stakes would be diluted and an angel investor may exit, reports say.

The Titan-CaratLane deal is expected to complete in the coming week. This will take CaratLane’s valuation at around Rs 1,200 crore, which until October 2014 was at Rs 750 crore.

Tata’s chairman emeritus, Ratan Tata has invested a personal stake in another online jewellery entity – BlueStone. Titan operates a jewellery division under the name Tanishq. CaratLane has in addition to its online presence, some showrooms in India.