Watch: Lenskart co-founder Ramneek Khurana on building a better omnichannel experience

Delhi headquartered omni-channel eyewear brand Lenskart is strengthening its technology team and will add 100 new members over the next six months. The company which recently acqui-hired Lucknow based last mile delivery company DailyJoy now has three technology centres across Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. 

The company is doubling down on WhatsApp-assisted buying which saw an uptick during the Covid-19 related lockdown and improving its computer vision, Augmented Reality and Machine Learning (ML) led recommendation engine for buyers, said co-founder Ramneek Khurana. “We have a repository of 10 million people – their faces and the glasses they liked,” he said in an interview with TechCircle.  

He added that this is deployed online and at Lenskart stores which helps sales agents recommend the type of glasses that might work for the buyer. 

The company which started 2021 with 150 people as part of its technology team had around 190 members by June working across functions. “We are also working on a voice-based chat bot in Hindi and plan on deploying it in other languages,” Khurana said. 

Given that online continues to be a larger channel than offline, Khurana expects the technology spends by the company to grow by 50% this financial year though he declined to give details on the exact budget.  

“That said, we continue to be bullish on offline expansion as well and have over 700 stores across 170 cities in India and Singapore,” he said, adding that nearly a third of the technology team was focused on ensuring continuity in the omni-channel experience offered by the brand. 

“During the lockdown, we immediately created an app which would allow the in-store sales agents, now working from home, help people complete their purchases through WhatsApp chats and other outreach.  

This way we could protect our 2000-strong store staff,” he added. 

Backed by SoftBank Group Corp and global private equity investor KKR, Lenskart is eyeing global expansion for the coming year with its brand.