How Solitario Turned ₹5 Crore Into ₹90 Crore in 25 Months

What turns a diamond label into a brand? At Solitario Diamonds, the answer is a point of view. CMO Kabir Kate has spent his tenure making lab-grown diamonds feel aspirational, culturally relevant and commercially measurable; the result, he says, is a jump from roughly ₹5 crore to ₹90 crore in 25 months.

Marketing as a growth engine

Kate’s route to luxury branding ran through digital marketing at DViO Digital, where he worked across brands and helped the agency expand into Dubai and the wider Middle East and North Africa. Later roles at Phoenix Mills exposed him to premium retail, ATL campaigns, celebrity collaborations and events. When he joined Solitario, his remit expanded across India, Dubai and Malaysia, with exposure to Spain.

Rather than treating marketing as an afterthought, Kate aligns PR, digital, content, media, retail experience and partnerships around a single brand narrative. “Consumers don’t just buy a product anymore; they buy from a point of view,” he told Indian Startup Times. That point of view is reshaping how Solitario sells an emotionally significant purchase.

Education can protect aspiration

Lab-grown diamonds create a new challenge: buyers are curious but uncertain. Kate’s response is to simplify the science, build confidence and communicate the experience through storytelling, PR, digital content and in-store conversations. Education should create clarity, he argues, without stripping away the aspirational character of luxury.

Consistency is the glue. His formula:

• Content builds relevance
• Creators build influence
• Digital converts attention into action

Those three layers let a brand keep one identity across touchpoints, even as each platform works differently.

Cultural moments as customer acquisition

Solitario’s campaigns show the playbook in action. A launch at Burj Khalifa demonstrated how scale and spectacle create experiences people want to be part of. A Dagdusheth Tilak campaign in Pune tied the brand to a regional cultural occasion and introduced new shoppers to its stores. A free diamond offer on Akshaya Tritiya gave first-time diamond buyers a low-risk reason to enter the category.

Kate points to concrete benchmarks: strong social content should hit 3–5% engagement or higher, while performance-led campaigns should deliver 2–4x ROAS. At leadership level he watches brand consideration, repeat behaviour, customer quality, revenue contribution and overall return on marketing investment.

What to borrow

For brand managers and founders, the lesson is not limited to jewellery. Build a distinct brand, make it culturally relevant, and measure marketing against commercial output. Give new category buyers a low-friction entry moment, educate without diluting desire, and use creators to convert attention into action. Kate’s vision is an Indian-born global luxury brand, but the mechanics apply to any brand that wants to turn storytelling into revenue.

Source: Indian Startup Times