At Viranigems.com, love is always in the air.

Both of our co-founders, Chirag Virani and Hetal Virani, met each other in kindergarten, and since then they were in the same school, same class, and even sat on the same row for years. VIRANI was incepted when Chirag proposed to Hetal in front of the beautiful Taj Mahal in 2014.

Meet Hetal Virani
Co-Founder and CFO, Viranigems.com

C.A., C.S., C.W.A., L.L.B., and B. Com., has brought her superior financial and legal expertise to the management of Viranigems.com. Hetal is responsible for day-to-day planning, implementing, managing and controlling all finance related activities of the company. Her passion for jewellery combined with her expertise as a Charted Accountant as well as a Cost and Works Accountant allows her to efficiently and effectively manage all the internal resources and keep the overhead costs as low as possible. Hetal has developed a unique demand driven and ‘zero inventory’ made-to- order business model. This cost-effective model combined with our efficient vertical integration from conflict-free rough diamonds procurement to jewellery retail sales helps our customers save up to 30% on diamond jewellery.

Hetal earned her C.W.A. from the Institute of Cost Accountants of India and C.A. from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. She holds a C.S. from the Institute of Company Secretaries of India as well as a Bachelor of Law and Bachelor of Commerce from Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, India.

When Hetal is not too busy evaluating financial reports, she loves to design unique jewellery collections for Viranigems.com. Hetal is a free spirited global citizen and loves to travel to unexplored, non-touristy places with her husband, Chirag Virani, whenever she gets a chance.

Meet Chirag Virani
Co-Founder and CEO, Viranigems.com

After completing his Mechanical Engineering from McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada and Master in Business Administration from Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada, Chirag Virani co-founded Viranigems.com with his childhood friend and beloved wife, Hetal Virani. Chirag has a diverse academic and professional background from Canada, the U.S.A., Europe, and India. Being a third generation diamantaire, Chirag overlooks Viranigems.com’s operations along the entire diamond jewellery pipeline starting from conflict free rough diamond procurement, in-house diamond cutting and polishing, jewellery design and manufacturing to jewellery retail sales through both online and offline channels.

With his credentials and professional experience, he was appointed as the Director of Strategic Planning for the Surat Diamond Association, a non-profit organization that has been representing manufacturers, DTC Sight Holders, traders, importers, exporters and institutions of Surat, “The Diamond City”, which cuts and polishes nine out of ten diamonds worldwide. Chirag also plays a vital role as an executive director at B. Virani & Co., a diamond cutting and polishing firm with a lineage of 50 years of expertise and industry experience.

Chirag holds charity causes very close to his heart. Whenever he gets a chance, Chirag loves to contribute to many social causes such as volunteering at Volunteer for Peace in Vietnam, Future Hope Baby Centre in Kenya, Lasting Blessing in Tanzania, Maximo Nivel in Costa Rica, Manvilas Charitable Trust in India to name a few.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu.

Our journey also started with a very small step. We had a very humble beginning with our first exhibition with close family and friends. We had only 40-50 designs

Initially people weren’t too comfortable buying diamond jewellery online, especially from a new brand since the Average Selling Price (ASP), was slightly higher than other products being sold online. We understood that the customers not only wanted the convenience of shopping from home, but they also wanted to be absolutely sure of what they would get when they place that order.

We realised that the more information we provide, the more we educate our customers about their jewellery, the more transparent we become the more comfortable our customers would feel before buying a high value product online. Therefore, we started providing jewellery details online which not only included the number of diamonds or grams of gold being used in a particular piece of jewellery, but also mentioned how much we charged for diamond, gold and making of that jewellery .

The fact that all of our jewellery is made with conflict free diamonds that are also cut and polished in-house, and that every single piece of jewellery we sell is 100% certified by the most respected gemmological labs worldwide such as GIA and IGI, customers started trusting us even as a new brand in the market.

Some of our customers weren’t sure about the exact size of the jewellery from the pictures and scale provided online alone. They missed the whole “touch and feel” experience, so we introduced innovative features such as “Try a 3D printed model before you buy”. Using this feature, customers can order an exact 3D printed replica of their jewellery and try it on in the comfort of their homes before making an informed purchase.

June, 2014: The Perfect Proposal

Virani was incepted when our Founder Chirag Virani proposed to his childhood friend Hetal Virani at the beautiful Taj-Mahal.

April, 2015: Launch of Viranigems.com

Viranigems.com was launched by combining a ‘zero inventory’ business model with an efficient vertical integration from rough diamonds to jewellery retail helping customers save up to 30% on diamond jewellery.

April, 2015: Launch of Viranigems.com in Canada

With no more than 50 designs, Viranigems.com was first launched in Toronto, Canada with close family and friends.

May, 2015: Launch of Viranigems.com in the U.S.A

After receiving overwhelming love and support from Toronto, Canada, Virani was launched in the U.S.A. in May 2015.

June, 2015: Launch of Viranigems.com in India

To make the affordable luxury a reality for all of our customers worldwide, Virani was launched in India in June 2015.

Thus began the love story of a man with diamonds. That love story started around 3000 years ago. The far forgotten land was some place in the Southern part of India (as per popular belief). And the man who found the first diamond… Well, no one really knows who found the first diamond. What is definitely known though is that since then men have done the most amazing and romantic things with these sparkling stones to celebrate their beauty.

Interesting Trivia: For nearly 500 years, diamonds were known only in India. The rest of the world had no idea that such an exquisite stone existed!

So who introduced diamonds to the rest of the world?

Some historical facts point the finger toward Alexander the Great of Macedonia. It is believed that he first took diamonds back to Europe with him when he returned to Greece after his conquest of India. That would mean diamonds travelled from India to Europe sometime around 327 BC. That’s even before Christ was born!

Maybe the ancient Indians knew about the value of diamonds and used them in jewellery… or maybe they did not. There’s no record. But what is historically known is that in the second century AD, a Hungarian queen had diamonds set on her new crown. Much later, in 1477 AD, the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, presented an engagement ring to his soon to be queen – Mary of Burgundy. The ring was set with diamonds and it started a trend of getting engaged with a diamond ring which continues till date.

Going back to the 13th century, cutting and polishing of natural diamonds was still an unknown process. No one knew how to cut diamonds until the late 13th century. It was only in 1375 that the Point Cut was created. Up until then, only the best naturally formed diamonds were used for jewellery or decorative purposes. The rest were discarded.
Fact: Until the 14th century, only best naturally formed diamonds were used for jewellery or decorative purposes; the rest were discarded since no one knew how to cut and polish the stones.

Increasingly thereafter, various new cuts were developed. The demand of diamonds as objects of desire and their use in jewellery grew substantially.

In the 18th century, India ran out of diamonds, but new supplies were discovered in Brazil. About a century and a half later, South Africa took over as the diamond producing capital of the world. It was South Africa that gave birth to the world’s largest diamond producing organization – the De Beers Corporation. As newer diamond deposits were discovered in various countries around the world, the reach of diamonds increased. What was once an object of desire and flaunted by only the rich and elite, started reaching the masses.

In the last couple of centuries, these stunningly brilliant stones have gone through many upheavals and changes, but their allure and attraction has remained unchanged.

Like all good stories, Virani also started when a boy met a girl.

Both of our co-founders, Chirag Virani and Hetal Virani met each other at the age of five when they were in kindergarten. And since then they were in the same school, same class, and even sat on the same row for years. VIRANI was incepted when Chirag proposed to Hetal in front of the beautiful Taj Mahal in 2014.

When Chirag was planning the proposal, he wanted to get the best engagement ring for Hetal. And the process he went through to get that special engagement ring essentially led to the birth of Virani. Being in the diamond business for over 50 years for three generations and having access to a diamond cutting and polishing factory that cuts and polishes over 200,000 diamonds a month, finding the best diamond wasn’t a challenge. But when it came to picking the ring design, Chirag met one of his jeweller friends and learnt the entire step by step process of how to create an engagement ring from scratch starting from 3D CAD design and 360 degree videos, to a 3D printed model and finally the finished ring. And when he got the finished ring, it was exactly how he had imagined and Hetal said yes.

Chirag personally found the entire process fascinating. After they got married in 2015, they came up with an idea of making the whole jewellery buying experience fun, transparent and convenient for EVERYONE whether or not they had access to a diamond cutting factory or a trusted family jeweller they had known for years.

Hetal and Chirag spent almost a year researching in order to identify the gaps in the industry and studied how people were browsing jewellery, how they were buying jewellery though both online or offline channels before launching Viranigems.com in 2016.

At Viranigems.com, it’s our mission to promote transparency throughout the jewellery purchasing process. Your precious diamond jewellery not only comes with a certificate of authenticity from leading gemological institutes, but it is also accompanied by a detailed price breakdown of how much you pay for your conflict-free diamonds, metal as well as the making of your jewellery. Our loyal customers enjoy luxurious shopping experience at Viranigems.com with unique features such as trying on an exact physical 3D printed plastic replica  before buying an actual piece of jewellery,  complete customization  capabilities,  free shipping,  30 day money back guarantee,  lifetime exchange offers and many more.

We realized that there were still many limitations in the current models that existed in the jewellery retail industry and the customers were simply not getting the quality experience they should when making such a high value purchase.

For instance, many online marketplaces lack transparency in terms of where they get their diamonds from or how much they charge for gold, or making or even who the real person is behind that digital company that you are buying your precious jewellery form, which you are going to gift to your wife or mother.

And when we looked at the offline, brick and mortar retailors that carry millions of dollars of inventory, we saw that some of them were charging ridicules amounts of mark-ups. Even after a having large physical inventory, they still lacked the flexibility in terms of providing multiple sizes or variations of the same design. They usually didn’t offer any customization on their pre-set jewellery in terms of changing the quality of diamonds or colour or purity of metal.

We asked ourselves, can we solve these problems using technology? Can we give our customers the best jewellery shopping experience by not being just another eCommerce store, but by introducing innovative features such as trying on a 3D printed model at home before buying the actual piece of jewellery, or viewing their jewellery in a complete 3D 360 Degree environment online?

We wanted to be a brand that merges art and innovation. We wanted to offer thousands of design options with full flexibility of changing diamond quality and metal colour for each of the designs, but without having a multi-million dollar inventory of diamond and gold.

Experience our cost effective, completely transparent business model that offers fully certified jewellery made with conflict free diamonds only at www.viranigems.com.

At Viranigems.com, we aim to make affordable luxury a reality for all of our customers. We believe that every heart deserves a gem. Our love for diamond jewellery combined with over 50 years of industry experience and expertise has allowed us to grow exponentially in a very short span of time.

With a firm focus on design, craftsmanship and customer experience, we thrive to perfect every single step of our supply chain starting from conflict-free rough diamonds procurement and in-house diamond cutting and polishing operations to jewellery design, manufacturing and online retail sales through Viranigems.com. Unlike other e-tailors that either outsource some or all of their manufacturing operations, our unique demand driven and ‘zero inventory’ made-to-order business model combined with efficient vertical integration from rough diamonds to jewellery retail helps our customers save up to 25-30% on diamond jewellery.

Our loyal customers enjoy luxurious shopping experience at Viranigems.com with unique features such as trying on an exact physical 3D printed plastic replica before buying an actual piece of jewellery, complete customization capabilities, free shipping, 30 day money back guarantee, lifetime exchange offers and many more.

At Viranigems.com, it’s our mission to promote transparency throughout the jewellery purchasing process. Your precious diamond jewellery not only comes with a certificate of authenticity from leading gemmological institutes, but it is also accompanied by a detailed price breakdown of how much you pay for your conflict-free diamonds, metal as well as the making of your jewellery.

Happy Jewellery Shopping!