Lab-grown diamond jewelry brands leverage AI to streamline their overseas expansion process and seek angel round financing.
Traditional jewelry transactions usually go through multiple links such as manufacturers, wholesalers, regional agents and retailers. For consumers, the long channel chain increases the cost of understanding prices and product information; for small and medium-sized jewelry brands, the inventory scattered in supplier systems, spreadsheets and instant messaging tools brings problems such as insufficient efficiency in product selection, quotation and delivery.
Lab-grown diamonds further amplify this contradiction. A single diamond needs to be combined according to parameters such as shape, carat, color, clarity, cut and certificate. It is difficult for a single supplier to hold a large amount of inventory, and traditional physical stores and static product pages cannot fully display all these SKUs, so consumers still have to rely on repeated communication with sales personnel.
Luminary Gem, a lab-grown diamond jewelry project launched in the second half of 2025, tries to build a digital transaction link connecting China's jewelry supply chain and overseas consumers through supplier inventory APIs, cross-border independent websites and AI Agent systems. The project currently adopts a parallel business model of DTC retail and B2B wholesale, and plans to seek angel round financing to improve the supply chain system, expand overseas customer acquisition, build brands and enhance cross-border fulfillment capabilities.
Luminary Gem was founded by Shao Xin, a post-90s entrepreneur. Shao Xin once worked at Huawei and China Unicom Cloud, with rich experience in industry digitalization projects and many previous entrepreneurial experiences in retail brands. His past experience is now mainly applied to supply chain process design, independent website construction, SaaS product development, as well as the delivery and operation of AI and cross-border B2B, B2C projects.
Convert scattered inventory into filterable products
China has formed a complete jewelry supply chain system covering diamond cultivation, cutting and polishing, design, inlaying and finished product production, but many enterprises still focus on OEM, ODM and supply chain manufacturing businesses, and there are relatively few enterprises that build brands directly for overseas consumers.
The core problem Luminary Gem hopes to solve is not whether jewelry can be produced, but how to make the product information scattered in different supplier systems enter the product selection process of overseas consumers and purchasers more efficiently.
The project accesses the diamond inventory of suppliers through APIs, and structurally processes information such as shape, carat, color, clarity, cut, certificate and price. Consumers can filter diamond parameters on the independent website, and then complete inquiry, customization and online order placement after selecting the jewelry style.
This intermediate layer also needs to undertake functions such as field mapping of different suppliers, inventory deduplication, markup rules, status update and order inventory locking. Compared with the traditional way that sales personnel send pictures, certificates and quotation sheets one by one, data structuring is expected to expand the range of displayable inventory and reduce repeated inquiries and information transmission links.
At present, the Luminary Gem independent website has launched more than 1000+ jewelry SKUs, covering finished jewelry categories such as lab-grown diamond engagement rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets and jewelry glasses. The project mainly adopts the make-to-order mode, arranging production after consumers confirm the style, material, size and diamond parameters, so as to reduce finished product inventory and capital occupation.
In terms of transaction transparency, the project page needs to clearly mark that the product is a lab-grown diamond, and display the corresponding certificate and product parameters. The team believes that for high-unit-price, low-frequency consumption jewelry products, consumers not only pay attention to the price, but also judge product authenticity, certificate information, customization process, delivery capability and after-sales guarantee.
Therefore, supply chain digitalization is only the foundation, and how to build the trust of overseas consumers in new Chinese jewelry brands is still a long-term problem that the project needs to solve.
233 Agents form a digital "company" to uniformly schedule different departments
In addition to the supply chain inventory system, Luminary Gem has also built a digital operation system composed of 233 AI Agents.
The organization of this system is closer to a digital company: 233 Agents are divided into 16 departments according to their functions, and are concentrated in a unified collaboration environment. The team can initiate tasks directly by calling the "department Agent", and the corresponding department will complete analysis, disassembly and preliminary execution.
For example, when planning an overseas marketing campaign, the Marketing Agent can be assigned to study the audience, keywords and content direction, the Design Agent generates visual solutions, the Paid Media Agent formulates an advertisement test plan, the Sales Agent sorts out the follow-up strategy for potential customers, and then the Project Management Agent coordinates the task progress.
Different departments undertake different tasks.
The Academic department is mainly used for industry knowledge research, data sorting and complex problem explanation; the Product department participates in user demand research, product function planning and roadmap formulation; the Finance department supports cost analysis, pricing calculation, budget and business data sorting; the Project Management department is responsible for splitting complex projects into phased tasks and tracking delivery nodes.
The Specialized department, which has 53 Agents, is mainly used to handle professional needs such as compliance, supply chain, cross-border business and specific industry research.
The capabilities for market and revenue growth are mainly concentrated in the Marketing, Paid Media, Sales and Support departments. The Marketing department can participate in SEO keyword research, content topic selection, social media planning, brand positioning and market trend analysis; the Paid Media department is responsible for advertising structure design, material testing and delivery data analysis; the Sales department supports potential customer classification, quotation communication, follow-up rhythm arrangement and sales document preparation; the Support department assists in sorting out pre-sales consultation, order status and after-sales problems.
Technology and quality assurance capabilities are jointly undertaken by the Engineering, Security and Testing departments. The Engineering department can participate in independent website function development, API access, inventory synchronization and automation tool construction; the Security department is used to check data security, account permissions and potential website risks; the Testing department is responsible for testing pages, interfaces and business processes to reduce the impact of function updates on consumer experience. The Design department assists in the auxiliary design of product pages, advertising materials and brand visual direction. In actual use, the team can assign one task to multiple departments at the same time. For example, when preparing to enter a new overseas market, the Academic and Specialized departments first study the local market and compliance requirements, the Marketing and Sales departments analyze demands and customer types, the Finance department calculates prices and gross margins, the Engineering department adjusts the website and payment process, and the Testing and Security departments complete pre-launch inspections.
B2B verifies demands, DTC undertakes brand building
Before formally expanding the DTC business, Luminary Gem first carried out B2B wholesale business through SODALULU, providing overseas jewelry brands, retailers and purchasers with lab-grown diamonds, jewelry customization and OEM, ODM supply chain services.
The B2B business is used to verify the actual demands of customers in different countries for styles, prices, certificates, customization and delivery, and at the same time provides orders and cash flow for the project. The DTC business directly faces overseas consumers, which is used to accumulate end-user feedback, brand awareness and content assets.
According to the data provided by the project party from June to July 2026, customers and potential customers in online communication channels cover at least 30 countries and regions. The project has internally formed order, proforma invoice and commercial invoice records from markets such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Georgia, Singapore, Norway and Barbados, and some customers have made multiple batches of purchases.
At this stage, Luminary Gem's revenue mainly comes from B2B wholesale and part of DTC retail. B2B can help the project establish overseas channel connections and verify supply chain capabilities, but its gross margin space is usually lower than direct retail; DTC has room for brand and gross margin improvement, but it requires continuous investment in content, services, after-sales and consumer trust building.
How to strike a balance between B2B cash flow and long-term brand investment is the problem that the project needs to verify in the next stage.
In terms of market expansion, the project plans to continue to deploy channels such as SEO, social media and AI search, accumulate natural traffic through social media operation, educational content, product stories and supply chain content, and reduce dependence on a single paid advertising channel.
Luminary Gem is currently planning to seek angel round financing, and the specific financing amount and valuation have not been disclosed. The funds are planned to be mainly used for supplier inventory access, independent website transaction function optimization, brand content construction, overseas customer acquisition and cross-border fulfillment system construction.
Shao Xin, the founder, believes that China's jewelry supply chain already has strong product production and delivery capabilities, but supply chain capabilities will not naturally be transformed into overseas brand capabilities. At this stage, Luminary Gem hopes to verify the feasibility of building a global jewelry brand with a small team through AI, independent websites and supply chain digitalization.
For the project, China's jewelry supply chain can solve the problem of product production, but it cannot naturally be transformed into overseas brand capabilities. Luminary Gem will continue to verify DTC customer acquisition cost, inquiry conversion rate, order gross margin, repurchase performance and after-sales efficiency, so as to judge whether the combination of "AI, independent website and Chinese supply chain" can form a replicable model for Chinese jewelry brands to go global.