Eterneva raises $5 million for its memorial diamonds

Austin-based Eterneva , which “celebrates remarkable people and pets” by turning their ashes into diamonds, has raised a $5 million round bringing its total funding to date to $9.8 million. 

Founded in 2016 and currently a team of ~19 people, the company first made headlines when it appeared on Shark Tank in October of 2019 and convinced billionaire investor Mark Cuban to purchase a 9% stake for $600,000.

The concept generated $913,000 in sales in their first year and since its pricing starts at $3,000 for the smallest diamond, it’s safe to assume that at most around 300 people purchased the product in the first year. But this concept isn’t new, is controversial, and is most definitely emotional.

LifeGem invented the memorial diamond or diamond from ashes way back in 2001, and there’s also Swiss company LONITÉ which claims it has developed a customer relations strategy that pays a lot of attention to the emotional wellbeing of the customers given that this business of memorial diamonds encompasses both jewelry and funeral industries.

Diamond expert and gemologist Grant Mobley suggests that these companies are taking advantage of consumers when they are grieving and vulnerable and leaving them short thousands of dollars, further explaining that the carbon that’s leftover from cremation is not near enough to produce a synthetic diamond and not in the correct form. To this, Eterneva responded with a ‘science‘ page.