Ryan Shearman, CEO and co-founder of Aether Diamonds in 2018, has highlighted the difficulties other synthetic diamond producers face in competing with Indian diamond growers in the global market.
Last week, lab-grown diamond e-retailer Grown Brilliance announced the acquisition of Aether Diamonds (parent company: Impossible Diamond) and another e-retailer, Clean Origin (parent company: Great Heights). The acquisition amount was not disclosed.
Aether has a unique product—its diamonds are created using carbon extracted from the air. However, despite strong demand, Aether struggled with production, primarily due to its manufacturing being based in the United States, rather than in India, where labor costs are significantly lower.
"Producers are certainly feeling the profit squeeze more than retailers," Shearman told JCK. "We sell at a higher price. U.S.-based labs really can't compete with India, and frankly, the material has to be shipped to India for cutting anyway."
Given that Grown Brilliance is a vertically integrated company, Shearman believes Aether will be more sustainable under its management. Grown Brilliance CEO Tejas Shah mentioned that while they don't own any growers, they do operate 260 of their own diamond manufacturing machines and work with multiple diamond suppliers.
Despite some industry skepticism about the influence of environmental concerns on consumers, Shearman maintains that Aether’s unique production method is a significant selling point.
"Talking about greenwashing, it’s hard for consumers to buy into," he said. "Solar has become a great equalizer, and now many Indian companies are using it. But the final frontier is certainly carbon."
Typically, diamond manufacturing requires methane, often sourced from oil drilling or fracking. Aether claims to be "carbon-negative" because it utilizes carbon from the atmosphere to produce methane.
Aether will continue to produce diamonds for Grown Brilliance and other companies in need. However, Shearman is now shifting his focus to his new company, Loa Carbon, to explore other applications for carbon capture technology.
"Given the shrinking margins in lab-grown diamonds, this is a more lucrative commercialization strategy," Shearman said.
On LinkedIn, Shearman described Loa Carbon as focusing on "converting renewable energy and captured CO2 into e-fuels and solid carbon materials at a commercial scale. We'll start with synthetic natural gas, high-purity methane gas products, and high-quality graphene nanoplatelets."
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