Toronto listed Lucara Diamonds will open its block chain-based retail platform, Clara Diamond Solutions (Clara), which was acquired for US$29 million earlier this year to sell its diamonds individually instead of in batches to modernise the whole system. The inaugural rough diamond sales are set to commence with a selected group of vertically integrated jewellers including Tiffany & Co, Signet Jewelers and Chow Tai Fook in November.
Lucara Diamonds collaborated with Sarine Technologies to create digital fingerprints of roughs, inclusion mapping and a system for uploading the fingerprints to Clara. Rough diamonds offered are from its Karowe mine in Botswana, one of the foremost producers of type IIa roughs over 10.8 carats and additional aggregated third-party roughs within one carat to 15 carats. They will be sold individually and based on polished characteristics. Lucara Diamonds’ CEO Eira Thomas said that the technology is able to grade and define the diamonds as well as enhance consumer confidence in the market by showing the diamonds are responsibly sourced and fairly traded, shuts the door of controversial blood and conflict diamonds to the market. Sellers upload their lots together with asking price and interested buyers place order by selecting diamond requirement regarding the 4Cs with their desired purchase price and create an ‘order’ in the system. Clara matches individual with proprietary analytics and Sarine's rough planning technology and earns the differential between the asking price and purchase price of each match. David Block, CEO of Sarine Technologies said a further cooperation with Clara on its provenance block chain initiative is expected as their ‘Diamond Journey’, a third-party visual diamond journey solution is a natural fit.
The company said Clara is a win-win situation for producers and manufacturers as producers are able to hit the best possible price for each diamond, while manufacturers can purchase on a stone-by-stone basis to reduce losses taken on unwanted inventory and purchase only the stones that meet their specific requirements. The platform has received strong interest from the industry and is considered a revolutionary technology. Lucara will invite more producers and manufacturers to participate in the platform after the initial sale.
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