SINGAPORE – Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, but for Devin Nathanael, the male co-founder of a lab-grown diamond specialist, they were the path to a new venture.
Together with his two former colleagues Iris Tan (38) and Sharon Sim (31), Nathanael founded Authica Jewellery in September 2021, just three months after the trio came up with the idea of specializing in jewelry made from lab-grown diamonds.
26-year-old Nathanael was looking for his “ideal” engagement ring when he came up with the idea for the jewelry store.
In conversation with Yahoo Finance Singapore Talking about the creation of Authica Jewellery, Tan and Sim said that it took Nathanael more than half a year to find the gemstone in the desired quality and with the desired ring design.
Even though he knew what he wanted, he couldn’t find diamonds that met his criteria in retail stores – either the design wasn’t quite right or the stone wasn’t quite right. The high price was another obstacle.
Nathanael shared his experience with his partners and within three months Authica Jewellery was born. As a bespoke jeweller, the company creates individual designs for clients using diamonds from Belgian or US laboratories.
The trio joke that they are “cross-generational,” with the oldest member Tan being the anchor of the team with the most industry experience. Sim, the “millennial,” is the creative lead, while Nathanael, the “Generation Z shopper,” is the most financially savvy.
The members of the team had met as colleagues at a leading jewelry chain, where they worked in middle management positions.
Despite their age difference, the three shared a love of diamonds, and each of them had a special memory of the gemstone at different stages of their lives.
Now the team operates from a cosy two-bedroom studio in Oxley Tower, where they have welcomed more than 100 clients so far. Asked about profit and revenue figures, Tan declined to give exact numbers but said the business is “thriving” and has become profitable in less than half a year and is on track for an “annual seven-figure target”.
60% cheaper
The three co-founders want to make consumers aware of the benefits of lab-grown diamonds. They say they can be up to 60 percent cheaper than mined diamonds and are also more sustainable.
Lab-grown diamonds have the same properties as mined diamonds, but are cheaper due to shorter processes and less labor. While mined diamonds take billions of years to grow and even more years to mine and then transport to sellers, lab-grown diamonds take just three to four weeks to grow in their controlled environment.
Lab-grown diamonds also undergo the same certification and grading processes as mined diamonds by the leading gem authorities, the Gemological Institute of America and the International Gemological Institute.
Lab-grown diamonds, which are grown from a “seed” in the lab, also have an environmental aspect. In contrast, mined diamonds cause significant environmental damage.
To differentiate themselves from the competition, the founders also go beyond the four Cs (cut, color, clarity and carat) that consumers commonly use when choosing their diamond. They offer another classification called Ulticut, which takes into account the polish and symmetry criteria of their jewels.
“We always explain to our clients that if they want a diamond of really high quality and beauty that really sparkles on its own, they definitely need to look beyond the usual four Cs. Because the usual four Cs … don’t really help you judge whether that diamond is really high quality or not,” Tan said.
“They’re usually just helpful for retailers like us to understand what your budget is and then we try to suggest something that works for you.”
For example, polishing is about the smoothness of each facet of a diamond, while symmetry refers to the optimization of each facet. All of these contribute to the gemstone’s natural sparkle.
Investment value
The founders are careful to distinguish lab-grown diamonds from cubic zirconia or moissanite, which are imitation diamonds that look similar but are not as durable or valuable.
For the founders, lab-grown diamonds are no less valuable as heirlooms than mined diamonds and may even be more attractive due to the savings involved.
“If the diamond is associated with the moment (or occasion), it doesn’t matter if it’s lab-grown or mined,” says Tan, who says she uses diamonds to commemorate important events like the birth of her child.
Since diamonds have no investment value, it should not matter whether they were lab-grown or mined, she added.
“It is advisable not to consider diamond jewellery as an investment asset because it is not considered an investment asset whether it is mined or lab-grown. Because even if you buy a mined diamond, you pay S$10,000 but as soon as you leave the shop, it almost immediately loses its value to S$5,000 because it has no resale value. It is not known in the industry to have a resale value like gold jewellery.”
Since the value of diamonds is falling, you might as well buy a lab-grown diamond and save 60 percent, she said.
“On a practical level, the initial savings can be equally attractive. Both diamonds sparkle very well at the end of the day.”
In the end, it took Nathanael almost nine months to find the perfect ring. His ring design: a round-cut diamond in a pavé setting. Naturally grown in the laboratory.
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