There’s a bit of a buzz in the lab-grown market about LovBe, a new direct-to-consumer e-tail site that features sometimes-aggressive pricing.
Some of LovBe’s smaller stones go for a cheaper per-carat rate than Lightbox’s; for instance, LovBe sells a 0.3 ct. H SI2 diamond for $116, which equates to about half of Lightbox’s $800-a-carat rate—and it includes a grading report in the price, to boot.
The company, which debuted last year, is a regular seller on RareCarat, an aggregator that fosters competitive pricing. As with natural diamonds, lab-grown sites sometimes sell the same stones, and LovBe’s prices often undercut that of the company’s rivals.
A 3.01 ct. heart shape that sells for $20,344 on LovBe, for instance, costs $23,805 on rival site New World Diamonds, though the diamonds have the exact same report—see here and here. (Those prices declined over the course of reporting this story, but the differentials stayed similar; a New World Diamonds customer service person told me that the company produces its own diamonds and that its “prices are set according to the standards we set in the industry.”)
So who is behind LovBe? An April 22 press release named LovBe’s founder and president as Margit Reinson, a veteran executive based out of Estonia whom the release describes as an industry newcomer. When JCK reached out to Reinson, she “politely declined” an interview.
While LovBe may be headed by a newbie, I did find at least one degree of separation between Reinson and an industry player.
A 2013 document names her as a representative of an Estonian company called Cresco.ee, along with Estonian businessman Olev Schults. Schults is listed as managing director of Spring Field Group, which is based on the island of Curaçao. According to court papers filed in March 2020, Spring Field Group owns Singapore-based IIA Technologies—a major lab-grown producer and the sister company of Pure Grown Diamonds. (Reinson, Schults, and IIA did not respond to requests for comment.)
Like many jewelry companies, LovBe spans the globe. Its marketing people are based out of Singapore, a source says. Its New York State filing lists its headquarters as Forest Hills, Queens, where it shares a street address and apartment number with Phoenix Distribution Concepts; that company does business as Phoenix Creations and is headed by veteran diamantaire Bharat Doshi. Doshi didn’t return JCK’s phone calls or messages.
Still, Reinson seems to be the site’s public face.
As one story put it, “LovBe is unique in that it was started by a woman—who actually had no background in the jewelry industry!”
While a female newcomer running a jewelry business may unfortunately be uncommon, it is also not entirely unique. What I have so far not encountered is a U.S.-centered jewelry dot-com that’s founded, and led, by someone in the Baltics.
Not many sites have a stone for ya via Estonia.
(Photo courtesy of LovBe)
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