Back in October we wrote about JewelMint, a new subscription jewelry site endorsed by Kate Bosworth and her stylist Cher Coulter. The site represents the first vertical for Santa Monica-based startup BeachMint, and it’s apparently doing well — less than three months after launching, BeachMint just landed a new $10 million round, which comes in addition to the $5 million it raised last summer. The round is being led by Trinity Ventures, with participation from Stanford University and existing investors New Enterprise Associates and Anthem Ventures.
That was fast. BeachMint was only founded in June by Diego Berdakin and MySpace cofounder Josh Berman, both of whom previously headed News Corp’s incubator Slingshot Labs. But the two founders claim they’ve seen “astonishing growth”, and they’re eager to use this money to expand to new verticals.
JewelMint is a lot like ShoeDazzle, the shoe site endorsed by Kim Kardashian. Upon signing up, JewelMint will present you with a brief quiz, which it uses to recommend a few pieces of jewelry based on your taste. Each piece of jewelry is designed by Bosworth and Coulter, and they’re available exclusively through JewelMint.
Buy something and you’ll be signed up for a subscription, which costs $30 a month. Each month you’re given a credit to use toward a single piece of jewelry, and if you don’t like any of the pieces recommended to you, you can skip and wait until the following month (you’re only charged when you order something). If you want to try it out, JewelMint is extending a special offer to TechCrunch readers — use the gift code Nerd15 and you’ll get 50% off.
Berdakin says that since launching JewelMint, BeachMint has increasingly found itself focusing on the technical side of things as it looks to hone its recommendations. “We’re sort of like a Pandora for shopping”, he explains, because the site tries to match customers with items they’ll like. This also boosts switching costs, because customers won’t want to leave their taste profiles behind.
Berdakin and Berman won’t talk revenue numbers or specify which verticals they’re targeting next, but they say we should expect more news in January. They also say that the company is going to continue to match celebrities with each new vertical because it’s proven so effective (they point out that Kate Bosworth and JewelMint have already been featured in numerous glossy magazines).
The company currently has a headcount of twenty, which it plans on doubling over the next couple months.
