Licha Diamonds was founded by Dr. Lalit K Aggarwal, Chairman and Founder of ImaGem Inc., a pioneer in objective diamond grading technology in February 2014. Even though Licha Diamonds was officially incorporated in 2014, its inception was anticipated many years back.
Most of you from the diamond industry are familiar with ImaGem and to those of you we are meeting for the very first time, a big warm hello! We are thrilled you stopped by!
So here’s how it all started….
Back in 1985, Dr. Lalit K. Aggarwal, a tenured University professor and Scientist by training, was sitting in his car, waiting at a traffic light. A raindrop fell on the windscreen and he saw the street light breaking into a myriad of colors. That’s when he came upon the idea of Image Statistics and eventually applied that to solve the color grading challenge faced by the diamond industry.
And ImaGem was born in February 1998!
In 1999, ImaGem Inc. received funding from the renowned Ben Franklin Technology Partners of South Eastern Pennsylvania, Tiffany & Company and private investors. Diamond grading technology was developed over a period of 5 years, patented in major markets in the world.
Over the next 10+ years, ImaGem successfully developed and commercialized its technology for scientific and objective grading of diamonds. In particular, ImaGem set objective standards for grading color, clarity, light behavior, fluorescence and proportions. We also figured out how to cut diamonds wisely – so they could be sparkly and reduce wastage of rough diamond material. We set up ImaGem Gem Grading Center in Surat, India and Precision Gem Grading Laboratory in Ardmore, PA to provide services to the trade and consumers.
Life was good but the team was still looking for excitement and a way to share its learnings with the end consumer. Enter Licha Diamonds!
With Licha Diamonds, we could make our dreams a reality! We could finally bring well cut beautiful diamonds using light behavior technology, supported with objective and accurate grading to you – at an excellent price!
So that’s how Licha Diamonds was born – yes, we have been around for 2 years in the real world, 20 years in our vision!