Indian diamond growers have made it challenging for other synthetic diamond producers to compete in the marketplace, says Ryan Shearman (pictured), who co-founded Aether Diamonds in 2018 and led the brand.
Last week, lab-grown e-tailer Grown Brilliance announced it had acquired Aether Diamonds (corporate parent: Impossible Diamond) along with another e-tailer, Clean Origin (corporate parent: Great Heights), for undisclosed amounts.
Aether offers a truly unique product—its diamonds are created using carbon captured from the air. Shearman notes that demand for Aether’s diamonds exceeded the company’s production capacity—the challenge, he says, lies in the fact that manufacturing takes place in the United States, unlike in low-labor-cost India.
“The margin pressure felt by producers compared to retail was significant,” Shearman tells JCK. “We were selling a product at a premium price. A U.S.-based lab simply can’t compete with India, and, in reality, the material has to be sent to India for cutting anyway.”
Shearman claims that because Grown Brilliance is vertically integrated, Aether is in good hands with them. According to Tejas Shah, CEO of Grown Brilliance, the company has 260 of its own diamond-making equipment in addition to several diamond suppliers, but it is not owned by any growers.
While some in the industry doubt the extent to which environmental concerns influence consumers, Shearman thinks his unique approach is a major selling factor.
“It’s difficult to win over customers when it comes to greenwashing,” he argues. Solar energy has emerged as a powerful equalizer, and many Indian businesses are currently utilizing it. However, the carbon is undoubtedly the last frontier.
Methane, which is often obtained by fracking or oil drilling, is used in the diamond manufacturing process. Aether bills itself as “carbon negative” since it uses atmospheric carbon to produce methane.
Grown Brilliance and other businesses that request them will continue to receive diamonds from Aether. But with his new business, Loa Carbon, Shearman is searching for more uses for his carbon capture technology.
“The decline in margins for lab-grown diamonds makes this a much better approach to commercializing our technology,” Shearman says.
In a LinkedIn post, Shearman revealed that Loa Carbon will focus on “large-scale conversion of renewable energy and captured CO2 into e-fuels and solid carbon materials. Our initial products include synthetic natural gas, high-purity methane gas, and premium graphene nano-platelets.”
