In Jaipur, the gem hub of India, where Nidhi Singhvi grew up, gold jewelery is a family heirloom passed down for generations, and is always a consideration when making one's calculations. net worthshe tells entrepreneur.

However, when Singhvi moved to the US about 14 years ago, he saw a very different attitude towards property.

“Jewelry was always made in a silly way,” says Singhvi. “When you buy it it's very marked up, and if you want to sell it, like a broken chain or earring, your infrastructure is a pawn shop or a local jeweler.”

As Singhvi graduated, the wheels were turning Wharton Did MBA from school and started his career. He focused on currency investing in a hedge fund, then built an options trading desk at a crypto brokerage.

But Singhvi's interest in jewelery business never diminished. “Gold is the OG asset class,” she says.

So, in 2024, she, along with fellow Wharton graduate Navya Reddy, co-founded Sonalore, a company offering 18-karat gold jewelry with a lifetime buyback guarantee.

But it wasn't long before Sonalor customers Came back again and again with requests: They already had a lot of jewelery but didn't know how much it was worth – could Singhvi and Reddy help with this?

"Whatsoever way customers “The revelation there gave us a shock,” says Singhvi. “They know it's an investment. Ask any woman. She treats her jewelery differently from everything else. But what is its value? To make an asset a true asset, you need to know its value.

Unvault co-founder amasses $750 billion fortune

Singhvi and Reddy immediately set out to meet customer demand. co-founders launched unvaultA financial platform for personal gold,"$750 billion The asset class is hiding in plain sight in Palo Alto, California in June 2025.

By October of the same year, Singhvi and Reddy met. leveraged ai To create the first evaluation app of your platform.

Not being able to raise money at the time was an important advantage, as it inspired them to become AI Native And “use whatever was available on the AI ​​front,” says Singhvi.

Unvault's app took photos of customers' jewelry and used volumetric data to estimate value.

“We used all our training from already being in jewelry for a year to improve that valuation,” explains Singhvi. “Even though at the time we were using Frontier [AI] models, we still used our understanding of jewelery to produce better results. And it started.”

Option to sell jewelery as per customer request

Customers soon expressed their desire to sell their jewelry on the platform, so Unvault added the option within the same month of launch. The company opened a PO Box in Palo Alto to receive items. “People were sending us thousands of dollars worth of jewelry,” Singhvi recalls, and she would drive herself there to pick up the pieces.

“We built Unvault to learn value and track value,” says Singhvi. “But sales were a use case that customers delivered.”

Promoting transparency Singhvi says this has also been important in the sales component. Unvault provides videos throughout the process to keep customers informed at every step, from opening a jewelry box to testing the gold in an X-ray machine.

“So it will tell you exactly whether it is 17.34 karat gold,” says Singhvi. “Then we will give you all the details. So it's not one number for a bunch of your jewellery. It will be one number for each individual item, and then the fees are broken down as well."

Finding Silicon Valley Investors Who Want $1 Trillion

Despite initial customer interest, when it came time to raise money from Silicon Valley investors, the co-founders faced some resistance.

“Everyone wants to support a trillion-dollar company,” says Singhvi. “They want to go back anthropicAnd I understand it. If I am taking this decision then I want to do the same. So there's definitely something to that. They say, 'Oh, gold jewelry, can you be worth $1 trillion?'"

For example, one investor told Singhvi that women do not wear jewellery. He said his wife only wears a few things: earrings, a ring and a bracelet.

“Well, it's a few thousand dollars,” says Singhvi. “But women have jewellery. Jewelery predates agriculture. It has taken many different forms, but there is an industry that is working, and you are a participant in it, whether you like it or not.”

According to Singhvi, good news? as long as there is a customer prove the marketIt's only a matter of time before investors react. Unvault had that customer in mind from the beginning – asking the questions that led to the company's existence.

“The Vice Chancellor is very good [smelling] customer traction“Everyone who partnered with us,” says Singhvi. [did so] “Once we started getting customer traction, once they started seeing that curve go up.”

Unvault tracked its first $1 million in assets in 27 days, then passed the $2 million milestone in five. By the time the company started raising money, it had accumulated $5 million in assets.

Unvault recently raised seed-stage capital due in June 2026. The amount has not been disclosed yet.

Importance of customer feedback at every level

Singhvi and Reddy continue to urge customer feedback Wherever possible (they've even placed golden eggs in Dolores Park to attract attention and gather opinions), knowing how valuable this has been at every step of Unwalt's journey.

This not only increases their confidence in their offering, but it also keeps them agile enough to meet the next customer's request.

Now, those customers are demanding the option to track inherited assets and expand beyond jewelry to include silverware or other collectibles. According to Bloomberg, older generations will pass on $93 trillion of wealth to their heirs over the next two decades informed.

Singhvi looks forward to building on Unvault's legacy feature and continuing to listen to our customers. And that's what she suggests any entrepreneur who wants to succeed does.

“Any way you can get customer feedback, and get customer feedback at some scale, is great,” says Singhvi. “It will just help you build the product, help you become a better founder, and then ultimately help you raise money as well.”

In Jaipur, the gem hub of India, where Nidhi Singhvi grew up, gold jewelery is a family heirloom passed down for generations, and is always a consideration when making one's calculations. net worthshe tells entrepreneur.

However, when Singhvi moved to the US about 14 years ago, he saw a very different attitude towards property.

“Jewelry was always made in a silly way,” says Singhvi. “When you buy it it's very marked up, and if you want to sell it, like a broken chain or earring, your infrastructure is a pawn shop or a local jeweler.”