THE GLORIOUS EXIT

In 2007 MITHUN SACHETI convinced his parents that he wanted to move on from the family business, Jaipur Gems. CaratLane, the startup he co-founded in the jewelry space with a capital of Rs 74 Lakh the following year, fetched Mithun Sacheti a staggering Rs 4,621 crore when he sold his remaining stake to Titan Company this year. BW Businessworld tracks the story of this magnificent clean, cash exit

- Resham Suhail

IN 2008, TERMS LIKE 'Omnichannel', 'UPI', 'D2C' and 'e-commerce' were entirely foreign concepts when Mithun Sacheti and his co-founder Srinivasa Gopalan ventured into the world of online jewelry retail. Their journey embodies the tale of ambition, aiming to establish one of India's most prominent jewelry brands. Despite operating at a loss for an uninterrupted period of 12 years, Sacheti managed to capture the attention of the Tata group, leading to the complete acquisition of Carat Lane by the the group's jewelry and watches business, the Titan Company.

Stellar Exit

In an unusual event in the Indian startup ecosystem, the co-founder of Carat Lane sold his existing 27.6 per cent stake for a whopping Rs 4,621 crore, making it one of the largest clean, cash exits. The Titan Company has progressively acquired stake in Carat Lane since 2016 and Carat Lane has been fairly profitable since FY2021.

"The beauty of these kinds of transactions is that they come out of nowhere," says Sacheti. For Mithun Sacheti, the decision to sell his residual stake to the Tata group company was not a settlement done overnight. Asked why he had not opted for the initial public offering (IPO) route to offload his stake, Sacheti says, "I would have loved to do an IPO but Tata did not see any route, did not see any value addition. If I had a chance to change anything in this whole journey, any point which would have made an IPO mandatory, we could have done it."

How did this start? What led to this deal? Sacheti recalls, "At some point in 2020, Titan felt that they wanted to own this entire business. Many discussions and meetings took place since then." He goes on to say, "My role was to try and see if I could convince them otherwise, I think they would have been really happy if I ran the business but didn't own the business."