Excl: Eye wear e-tailer Lenskart in advanced talks to raise $25M from TPG, others

Noida-based Valyoo Technologies Pvt Ltd, which owns a string of e-commerce properties including Jewelskart.com, Watchkart.com, Bagskart.com and Lenskart.com, is in advanced talks to raise $25 million in its Series round of funding led by TPG Capital, a US-based private equity fund, two persons privy to the development told Techcircle.in. Existing investors including IDG Ventures and Unilazer Ventures are also likely to participate in this round. The money raised from the round will go into its online eye-wear business Lenskart.com.

One of the persons revealed that Valyoo's founder Peyush Bansal had met some of the investors in Mumbai last week. The firm, however, has not appointed an invest banker yet.

We've contacted Valyoo's founder Peyush Bansal and TPG Capital's Puneet Bhatia for more details, and will update the post as and when we hear from them.

The firm was started in 2010 with Lenskart.com. On an average, LensKart ships 1,000 spectacles a day, with the average value ranging between Rs 1,100 and 1,200. As per these numbers, the site alone is doing Rs 3.3 to 3.6 crore in monthly GMV. Over the years, the company has undergone a complete experiential revamp and introduced a number of features like home eye check-up programme, try-before-you-buy, virtual studio or try on, new lenses in old frames, refer and win, as well as an exchange programme. The company also has over 15 offline stores in the country.

Lenskart clocked revenues of Rs 32 crore in the year ended March 31, 2013 against around Rs 8 crore in the previous year.

As of now, Valyoo's three portals together contribute around 30 per cent of Valyoo's overall revenue, which basically means that LensKart dominates the other portals in terms of business generated. Bansal estimates that his company will earn revenue of Rs 140 crore in FY 2015. In the last three years, the company claims to have seen 300 per cent increase in its turnover. The current employee strength is 150.

In February last year, Valyoo had raised $10 million in its Series B round of funding, led by Unilazer, with participation from IDG. Prior to that, it had raised $4 million from IDG in October 2011.