Funding Alert

Softbank Backed Lenskart Raises $220 Million

• ByAyushi Ray     |    July 19, 2021

As India’s tech industry booms, Lenskart raises $220 million from investors such as Temasek Holdings Pte and Falcon Edge Capital. Founded by Peyush Bansal in 2010, the company sells eyeglasses, contact lenses and sunglasses online and through about 750 retail outlets in the country. It plans to use the capital, along with $95 million raised earlier this year from KKR & Co., to expand online sales and add brick-and-mortar stores in India, as well as in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.“Every vertical from apparel to footwear, aside from eyewear, has been disrupted globally,” said Bansal over a video conference announcing the funding. We can easily spend two decades solving the problem of awareness, penetration and affordability in eyewear.” The startup’s valuation is now $2.5 billion, the founder said.

Lenskart sold about 8 million pairs of eyewear last year and is aiming to grow the same by 30 percent in the upcoming fiscal year. The company claims to be the largest eyewear seller in India and seeks to become the leader in Southeast Asia and the Middle East as well. The combined market opportunity is projected to be more than $15 billion by 2025, the startup said in an announcement on Monday. India’s tech industry is having a breakout year. Global investors are pouring billions of dollars into the country’s startups, minting more unicorns than ever before. Those investments are starting to pay off.  Recently Food-delivery app Zomato Ltd. became the nation’s first unicorn to make its stock-market debut, raising $1.3 billion. The digital payments startup Paytm filed a draft prospectus for what could be the country’s biggest IPO ever. 

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