With a vision for growth, Lenskart nets $220 mn from Temasek, Falcon Edge

After a decade-long journey to crack the fragmented eyewear market in India, omnichannel D2C retailer Lenskart is on a mission to win the niche space in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. And, powering its ambition are Temasek Holdings and Falcon Edge Capital who have led a $220 million (about Rs 1,645 crore) investment in a latest round of funding at the company.  

The latest investment round also saw participation from early investors, Bay Capital and Chiratae Ventures.

Faridabad, Haryana headquartered Lenskart said it will use the capital to grow exponentially over the next three to four years and expand its omni-channel presence and operations across India, Southeast Asia and Middle East. The company also plans to deepen its investments in technology and AI-driven innovations to create a personalised experience for its customers.   

 “We’re already the largest eyewear player in India and in the top three in Singapore. Lenskart envisions to have 50% of India wearing its specs over the next 5 years and become the number one eyewear platform in Southeast Asia and Middle East over the next 18 to 24 months through organic and inorganic expansion,” Peyush Bansal, CEO at Lenskart, said in a statement. 

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

 Lenskart has reasons to be optimistic about its growth projections. India and China lead the global eyewear market, which is expected to surpass $ 150.43 billion by the end of the year 2026, according to data from ResearchAndMarkets. Adoption of digital tools such as virtual try-on and tele-optometry have increased traction in eyewear ecommerce.

The market opportunity for Lenskart in the target geographies of Southeast Asia and Middle East is expected to be over $15 billion by 2025, the statement said.

The fresh capital brings the transaction size of the round being raised by Lenskart to $315 million (Rs 2,355.6 crore). In May, Lenskart had announced raising $95 million from global private equity firm KKR, giving an exit to early investors TPG Growth and TR Capital.  It has raised over $723.39 million in equity capital to date, according to data sourced from VCCEdge.

Avendus Capital acted as exclusive financial advisor to Lenskart and its shareholders for the transaction.  

In a bid to accelerate its growth in the Indian market, Lenskart has also made key acquisitions. In the financial year 2020-2021, the company has made three acquihires including events company Highape, Courierwala and micro delivery company DailyJoy. Lenskart also invested in omni-channel retail tech company Tango Eye during the year.

The company has also announced setting up Vision Fund with corpus of $20 million to back startups in the sector of direct-to-consumer eyewear and eye care brands, technology enabling access to vision care, eye testing technology, omni-channel retail solutions across logistics, merchandising etc and deep tech solutions for eyewear, retail and ecommerce.  

“Lenskart has built a world-class fully backward-integrated omnichannel eyewear retail experience with extreme customer centricity. This customer obsession results in Lenskart’s distinctive NPS (net promoter scores), best-in-class customer repeats/retention and store productivity,” said Navroz Udwadia, cofounder and partner at Falcon Edge Capital in the statement.  

Founded in 2010 by Bansal, Amit Chaudhary and Sumeet Kapahi, Lenskart has over 750 omni-channel stores across cities in India, apart from a presence in Singapore.