Palmonas is a Pune-based omnichannel demi-fine jewellery brand selling daily-wear pieces made from surgical stainless steel, sterling silver, and gold-finished materials. It’s chasing a clear gap: buyers want jewellery that looks premium without fine-jewellery prices or throwaway imitation-jewellery quality. That’s why Palmonas funding is worth watching right now. The startup has secured $40 Mn, or about ₹373 Cr, in a Series B round led by Xponentia Capital and Vertex Growth Fund, with existing investor Vertex Ventures SE Asia & India also participating. Founded in 2022 by Pallavi Mohadikar and Dr. Amol Patwari, and later joined by actor Shraddha Kapoor as cofounder, the company now wants to use fresh capital to scale its offline retail footprint.
What is Palmonas jewellery and how does it work?
Palmonas sells demi-fine jewellery — basically the middle lane between cheap fashion jewellery and traditional fine jewellery. Its products are built on surgical-grade stainless steel or 925 sterling silver and finished with 18k gold tone plating, rhodium, or gold vermeil. Some newer lines also extend into lab-grown diamonds and 9k gold. The pitch is simple: pieces that look luxe, feel skin-safe, and are designed for repeat wear rather than special-occasion storage.
For a customer, the buying flow is less like walking into a legacy jewellery store and more like shopping a modern D2C fashion brand. You browse chains, rings, earrings, stacks, or silver-toned lines online or in-store. Then you pick everyday styles and buy at far lower ticket sizes than fine jewellery. Palmonas has previously sold pieces in roughly the ₹900 to ₹8,000 band. That tells you exactly where it sits in the market.
What makes the product more than branding is the materials story. Palmonas leans hard on waterproof, anti-tarnish, sweat-resistant, and hypoallergenic claims. That matters because everyday jewellery usually fails on one of those basics. In practice, the brand is selling convenience as much as style — jewellery you can wear to work, to dinner, in the rain, or at the gym without treating it like a fragile asset.
Who founded Palmonas and what did they build before?
From an operating room idea to a jewellery brand
Palmonas was founded in 2022 by Pallavi Mohadikar and Dr. Amol Patwari. The origin story is unusually specific: Patwari’s exposure to surgical steel in orthopaedic practice helped spark the idea that durable medical-grade materials could be adapted into jewellery for daily use. It’s a sharper starting point than the usual “we saw an Instagram trend” consumer-brand launch.
Shraddha Kapoor joined later as cofounder after first being a customer of the brand. That celebrity association obviously helped attention, but it also gave Palmonas a more mainstream consumer identity at a stage when most D2C jewellery labels are still fighting for recall. In March 2024, the company said Kapoor would be hands-on in building the brand, not just fronting ads.
Why the founders fit this category
Mohadikar doesn’t come from traditional jewellery, but she does come from consumer internet and brand-building. She studied electronics and telecommunication engineering at COEP, worked at TCS, then earned an MBA from IIM Lucknow before moving full-time into entrepreneurship. That matters because Palmonas isn’t trying to behave like a family-run jeweller. It’s being built like a modern retail brand with a digital brain.
She and Patwari had already built Karagiri, an online saree brand launched in 2017, before Palmonas. Karagiri was later acquired by Mensa Brands, which gives Mohadikar a real execution track record in Indian D2C, not just founder-story polish. That prior experience likely helped with sourcing and merchandising. It also helped with online demand generation and the messy parts of omnichannel retail that don’t show up in celebrity campaigns.
Patwari, meanwhile, is the less typical half of the founding pair. He trained as an orthopaedic surgeon and practiced in Pune before shifting into entrepreneurship. That medical background is part of Palmonas’ credibility in materials-led positioning — surgical stainless steel isn’t a random branding flourish here; it sits close to the company’s actual founding logic.
Traction, funding, and where Palmonas sits against rivals
Palmonas is no longer just an online label with influencer heat. Kapoor said the company already has 60 stores, that retail contributes a significant share of revenue, and that every store is profitable. Her line was blunt: these aren’t “cashburn” vanity stores. If that holds, it’s a much healthier signal than the usual D2C-to-retail expansion story, which often burns money for visibility first and unit economics later.
The new Series B brings in $40 Mn led by Xponentia Capital and Vertex Growth Fund, with Vertex Ventures SE Asia & India also participating as an existing backer. PwC India served as exclusive financial advisor on the deal. Before this, Palmonas had raised ₹55 Cr in a Series A round in August 2025 to widen its portfolio and grow its offline presence. It also planned to enter new categories. Previously disclosed funding before the new round stood at roughly $6 Mn.
Competition is getting real. GIVA has built a much larger branded jewellery machine with a wide store network and deep institutional backing, while Kushal’s has pushed hard on omnichannel fashion and silver jewellery retail across India. Then there’s a separate but adjacent set of brands — True Diamond, Jewelbox, Lucira, and Aukera — that rode the lab-grown diamond boom through 2025. Palmonas is trying to sit in a tighter lane than all of them: not imitation, not heirloom fine jewellery, not diamond-first. Its differentiation is accessible demi-fine product and modern design language. The offline model is already profitable, according to the company.
Why does Palmonas funding matter so much right now?
Because retail expansion is expensive, and Palmonas has now raised enough money to find out whether its thesis actually scales.
This round isn’t just about adding more SKUs or running louder ads. Offline jewellery retail needs inventory depth and store hiring. It also needs fit-outs, visual merchandising, and supply-chain discipline. If Palmonas really intends to ramp up store count over the next 12 months, this capital gives it room to move faster without pretending online-only growth is enough.
There’s also an investor signal here. Xponentia and Vertex aren’t backing a raw idea; they’re backing a format that has moved beyond initial product-market fit. Because the stated use of funds is offline expansion, the bet looks less like a celebrity-led consumer splash and more like a structured omnichannel rollout.
That’s the part that matters. Celebrity brands get attention. They don’t automatically get repeat purchases, profitable stores, or disciplined retail execution.
Why are investors betting on demi-fine jewellery now?
Part of the answer is timing. Social media has changed how jewellery gets discovered, styled, and bought. Younger shoppers don’t always want to make a traditional fine-jewellery purchase, but they also don’t want accessories that look cheap or age badly after a few wears. That’s where demi-fine has become a real retail category instead of just a marketing phrase.
The numbers support the broader shift. A recent market forecast pegs the global online jewelry market to grow by about $69.68 Bn during 2025 to 2030, at a CAGR of 18.7%. In India, silver jewellery has been moving from “budget alternative” territory into a more design-led, everyday luxury purchase, helped by digital storefronts and changing consumer taste.
You could also see this in how capital flowed through 2025. Lab-grown diamond brands pulled in fresh funding, signalling that investors are hunting for newer jewellery formats outside the old gold-dominated model. Palmonas benefits from the same structural change, even if its product stack is different. It’s selling aspiration without asking customers to behave like they’re making a lifetime investment.
The takeaway on Palmonas funding
Palmonas funding is big enough to push the company out of the “interesting D2C brand” phase and into a much harder test: national retail execution.
Watch the next 12 months. Store growth, category expansion, and whether Palmonas can keep its current store economics intact while scaling faster will matter most.
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FAQ
What is the latest Palmonas funding round?
Palmonas has raised $40 Mn, or about ₹373 Cr, in a Series B round led by Xponentia Capital and Vertex Growth Fund, with Vertex Ventures SE Asia & India also joining the round. The company has said the fresh capital will be used mainly to expand its offline retail presence.
How does Palmonas jewellery work as a demi-fine brand?
Palmonas sells jewellery made from surgical stainless steel and sterling silver, finished with 18k gold tone plating, rhodium, or gold vermeil. The idea is to offer daily-wear pieces that are waterproof, anti-tarnish, and hypoallergenic, so buyers get a more durable product than standard fashion jewellery.
Who founded Palmonas?
Palmonas was founded in 2022 by Pallavi Mohadikar and Dr. Amol Patwari, with Shraddha Kapoor joining later as cofounder. Mohadikar had already built saree brand Karagiri before this, while Patwari came from an orthopaedics background that helped shape the brand’s materials-led identity.
Is Palmonas a fine jewellery brand or a fashion jewellery brand?
It sits between the two. Palmonas is a demi-fine jewellery brand, which means it targets buyers who want better materials and longer wear than imitation jewellery offers, but at a much lower price point than traditional fine jewellery.
