Table of Contents

Introduction
Understanding Jewelry Manufacturing, and Jewelry Supply Chains & Value Chains
The Problem: Jewelry Production Remains in the Distant Past
Gildform: Online & On-Demand Design & Manufacturing for the Jewelry Industry
Innovation Driven by Firsthand Experience in Jewelry Design & Production
Harnessing The Power of the Internet, Innovation Platforms, and 3D Printing
Why Technology-Driven Innovation in Jewelry Production & Manufacturing Matters
Conclusion

Human beings indicate their social status and power through jewelry, and one may argue that jewelry is as old as civilization. Moreover, the sophistication and intricacy of jewelry design and creation parallels technological advancements over the course of human history.

Advancements in jewelry design and creation are intertwined with society's ability to obtain, refine, and manipulate the materials that have formed the basis for jewelry over time. These include bones, shells, wood, gemstones, and precious metals.

Understanding Jewelry Manufacturing, and Jewelry Supply Chains & Value Chains

Generally speaking, the jewelry manufacturing process can be divided into 7 steps: 3D Model Design; 3D Wax Printing; Metal Casting; Basic Assembly; Stone Setting; Polishing and Finishing, and; Quality Assurance.

A detailed examination of each of these steps is beyond the scope of this blog. However, the complexity that is inherent in the jewelry manufacturing process, but which is hidden by that list, poses a high hurdle for new and emerging jewelry brands as well as their incumbent and established counterparts.

This diagram from The Global Diamond Report 2013: Journey through the Value Chain published by Bain & Company in association with the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) helps to illuminate the scale and scope of jewelry value chains and supply chains.

The diagram above is specific to the value chain for diamond jewelry. However, it is schematically identical for other categories of jewelry, with minor modifications.

According to IBISWorld, jewelry stores in the United States will generate $32.2 Billion in revenues in 2022, and according to Grandview Research, “The global jewelry market size was valued at USD 249.02 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.5% from 2022 to 2030. Increasing disposable income and innovative jewelry designs offered by manufacturers are expected to drive the product demand. Changing lifestyles and perceptions of jewelry as a status symbol are expected to boost the growth of this market. COVID-19 has had a positive effect on jewelry sales, with 30% of consumers in a recent poll reporting they purchased more jewelry during the pandemic, according to a study from the supplier group, the Plumb Club.”

Jewelry ecommerce is growing as a portion of overall jewelry retail sales. This data from the article Online Jewelry Sales Statistics (2011–2022) summarizes ecommerce revenues in jewelry retail.

Moreover, as the following chart shows, ecommerce as a portion of total jewelry retail sales should continue to grow incrementally for the foreseeable future. Industry reports and analyses suggest that jewelry retail has held up well over the course of the pandemic, with some reports suggesting that consumers increased their spending on jewelry during the pandemic.

The Problem: Jewelry Production Remains Stuck in the Distant Past

To start a jewelry line, an individual creator who is new to the industry must: Learn to design the jewelry; Learn to make models of the jewelry by hand; Learn how to find and negotiate production with contract manufacturers; Learn to polish and finish the manufactured jewelry by hand, and; Learn to sell to the individual buyer. Small jewelry brands go through the same steps, with the advantage of having some experience with some or all of the steps in the process.

Established and large non-jewelry brands that seek to add jewelry as a complement to their existing product offerings face the same set of challenges individual creators and small jewelry brands encounter. However, for such brands the problems may be more easily categorized as: Establishing a reliable supply chain; Establishing collaborations with experienced jewelry designers, and; Establishing relationships with contract manufacturers capable of meeting anticipated demand.

In A multifaceted future: The jewelry industry in 2020 (February 2014), Linda Dauriz, Nathalie Remy, and Thomas Tochtermann (DR&T) of McKinsey observed that the forces that were playing out in fashion and apparel were playing out in jewelry too. They state, “Our research indicates that five trends that shaped an adjacent industry—apparel—over the past 30 years are becoming evident in the jewelry industry as well, and at a much faster pace: internationalization and consolidation, the growth of branded products, a reconfigured channel landscape, “hybrid” consumption, and fast fashion.” Other forces that are shaping the apparel industry include on-demand manufacturing, mass customization, and personalization.

If the broad conclusion reached by DR&T is correct, then we should expect the jewelry industry to be shaped by rapidly advancing technological changes related to the following 8 trends: internationalization and consolidation, an increase in branded jewelry, a shift in revenue distribution across sales channels, hybrid consumption - which is a mix of luxury and price-conscious consumption, fast jewelry, on-demand manufacturing, mass customization, and personalization.

Similar to the apparel industry, jewelry production still relies on traditional methods that are slow, highly manual in nature, lacking in real-time collaboration, and inaccessible to most people. Moreover, the industry is not positioned to adapt to the trends outlined above.

This is where Gildform comes in.

Gildform: Online & On-Demand Design & Manufacturing for the Jewelry Industry

Gildform is a commerce-enablement platform that helps jewelry creators, big or small, go from jewelry concept to fulfillment in a tenth of the time it takes using traditional methods. It is an all-in-one innovation platform that enables participants in the jewelry manufacturing value chain to collaborate in the creation of jewelry products, from concept to final delivery to the end customer.

Every jewelry creator using Gildform benefits from 4 unique functions that facilitate the development of a jewelry concept from the initial idea formulation all the way to getting a finished product in the hands of the final consumer. These functions are:

A Design and Production platform, through
- An On-Demand Platform for jewelry production and live order tracking,
- A collaborative Global Design Marketplace connecting technical, freelance Jewelry CAD designers with creators, and
- A Full-Service Automated 3D Manufacturing service,
A proprietary enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to facilitate design and manufacturing,
A Print On-Demand Shopify App, and
On-demand Production Financing of up to $50,000.

Through its platform Gildform makes on-demand jewelry production, high-quality finishing, fast-to-market lead times, and expert design services accessible to anyone who has an idea that they’d like to turn into physical jewelry.

Innovation Driven by Firsthand Experience in Jewelry Design & Production

Guildform is led by Karissma Yve. Prior to founding Gildform in 2020, Karissma owned and operated her own specialty jewelry brand, Xenophora, and Casting De Khrysopeia - an experiential jewelry manufacturing facility in her hometown of Detroit, Michigan.

By the time she launched Gildform her creations had been carried by retailers in Japan, Italy, France, and Russia, and she had achieved the distinction of showing her creations at Paris Fashion Week 2016 and 2017. As Xenophora grew Karissma faced increasing difficulties in meeting demand due to long lead times for initial quotes from contract manufacturers, high minimum order quantities, and the other high costs associated with growing the business.

Her experience building Casting De Khrysopeia opened her eyes to the opportunity that existed for a platform that solved the problems she faced as an experienced jewelry designer seeking to build a business with significant potential for growth.

In my very first email to her, and during my initial conversation with Karissma, I told her I was very skeptical that she could do what she claimed Gildform was doing because another startup tried to do the same thing in 2014 and ultimately failed - my former employer was an investor in that startup.

She explained to me that the other team may have failed to understand the nuances of the jewelry production and manufacturing process, and that while she did not know the details about that situation, her guess is that if they did not start out with full control of the entire manufacturing process they would find the issues related to quality control too difficult to manage. In her opinion inadequate quality control would definitely lead to failure for any startup attempting to do what Gildform is doing.

With Gildform’s patent-pending method and process for custom jewelry, Gildform empowers jewelry creators with its 4 proprietary software platform assets, including:

A platform for on-demand, just-in-time manufacturing featuring visual rendering and real-time metal market pricing,
Gildform ERP software, which enables management of all facets of the core business, including the jewelry production process while giving customers real time updates and visibility into the production floor, putting quality and throughput at customers’ fingertips,
Gildform: Print On-Demand Shopify App that helps Creators get their designs to market instantly, and
Gildform Design Marketplace that matches creators with the best jewelry CAD Designers in the industry.

Among other things, Karissma has;

Been recognized by Crain’s Detroit Business as a 40 Under 40 honoree for 2022,
Won the pitch contest at the 2022 30 Under 30 hosted by Forbes in Detroit,
Designed and produced jewelry for the Black Panther and Wakanda Forever films from Marvel,
Steered Gildform into the inaugural class of Techstars Detroit Powered by J.P. Morgan, and
Steered Gildform into the cohort of 50 finalists in the 2022 Black Ambition Prize Competition.

Harnessing The Power of the Internet, Innovation Platforms, and 3D Printing

Gildform enables all parties involved in the jewelry design, production, manufacturing and retail to benefit from the power of collaborative software that is lightweight and flexible. The platform can be used for synchronous or asynchronous collaboration.

Gildform focuses on fashion jewelry which bridges the ultra-fine jewelry and the costume jewelry segments. Fashion jewelry is experiencing significant growth among existing players and new entrants. The category of jewelry Gildform is initially focused on is made up of gold, sterling silver, brass and gold plated jewelry.

With the growth in direct-to-consumer commerce, Gildform empowers startup, emerging, and established jewelry brands to design, produce, and sell jewelry directly to the end customer rather than going through retail intermediaries. For such potential customers, Gildform eliminates the problems related to high minimum order quantities, long lead times to getting initial quotes, and the difficulty related to finding and working with contract manufacturers.

Why Technology-Driven Innovation in Jewelry Production & Manufacturing Matters

Consumer awareness is driving the largest companies in every industry to reconsider their attitudes towards Climate Change, Environmental Sustainability, and Social Impact. The Jewelry industry isn’t immune to this shift in consumer behavior and expectations. In one sense, the jewelry industry may be more exposed to growing, negative consumer sentiment given the important role that mining plays in the jewelry supply chain.

On October 22, KnowESG reported that; “The ISSB voted unanimously to require companies to use the current version of the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard to report their Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.”

What does that mean?

It means that regulatory bodies will soon require companies that wish to access the capital markets to report direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions from across their entire value - this means that a jewelry company would have to provide reporting on their greenhouse emissions starting all the way from mining operations to retailing.

There are two ways in which a platform like Gildform can enable large jewelry brands to modify the way jewelry supply chains and value chains function in order to make them more environmentally sustainable than they have been in the past: First, by using 3D printing or additive manufacturing, startups like Gildform make it possible for jewelry companies to use materials that are less harmful to the environment, and; Second, through distributed and on-demand manufacturing, startups like Gildform can greatly reduce waste resulting from the materials and logistics consumed as part of the jewelry production process. Moreover, whenever it is possible, Gildform prefers to work with sustainably sourced materials rather than virgin, mined metals.

A long term R&D project that Gildform is exploring is the creation of a distributed manufacturing network that is based on the platform it has developed. In this case, manufacturing would be coordinated across a network of geographically dispersed production facilities using Gildform’s software platform.

There are other markets besides jewelry that could use a specialized ERP system with the functionality offered by Gildform’s system. As it grows, the company plans to explore these expansion opportunities.

We are #ObsessivelyEnthusiastic

As we say at REFASHIOND Ventures, we are #ObsessivelyEnthusiastic about what Karissma and the team at Gildform is building. The company is fundraising; Gildform has raised less capital than most other startups at a similar stage of development. Each time I speak with Karissma, I come away knowing that she has accomplished far more than anyone would expect with far less than anyone would think is possible. From that perspective, she is precisely the type of founder we seek to back and champion; After all, we are underdogs too.

As early-stage investors, we are encouraged that many more downstream investors have awoken to the opportunity in #SupplyChainTech. We couldn’t be more excited to back supply chain technology founders at the early stages of their journey to transform the way the world makes, buys, moves, stores, and consumes the products and services that we all need and want.

REFASHIOND Ventures champions and invests in startups reinventing global, industrial supply chains through scalable networks, platforms, ecosystems, and information infrastructure; Defensible through economic moats. If you are a startup founder who believes that what you are doing fits our thesis, please fill out our data-intake form. We review submissions on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays during our team meetings, and we reach out to the startups from whom we would like more information.

At most venture capital firms, early-stage supply chain technology is a tiny, emerging “area of interest” . . . At REFASHIOND Ventures, it’s our entire world. Startup founders can learn more by reading the For Founders section of our website.