Eyewear retailer Lenskart intends to use its capital and $95 million from KKR in May to make investments in its supply chain, new technologies and grow in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Lenskart declares to toil over seven million customers every year.
Eyewear retailer giant Lenskart has boosted $220 million from investors headed by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek, Bloomberg reported. Falcon Edge Capital also invested in the company. The company prepares to use this capital and $95 million allocated from KKR in May to make investments in its supply chain, new technologies and expand in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, as the report suggested.
KKR had invested through a trivial stake purchase through its Asian private equity fund. KKR had pledged to help the company scale its services overseas and intensify its digital offerings to expand customers’ virtual and Omni-store experiences.
Early investors in Lenskart were TPG Growth and TR Capital, which first financed in late 2014, have reportedly seized a portion of their holding in the company. The company now has an estimate of $2.5 billion. The company was established by Peyush Bansal in 2010 and markets eyewear online and through its 750 retail outlets across the country. It declares to assist over seven million customers every year and is financed by Softbank, Kedaara Capital, Premji Invest and Steadview Capital among other chief investors.
“India is the blind capital of the world and about half of its 1.3 billion people need glasses,” Bansal told Bloomberg. “We turned profitable at the company level before the pandemic, were in the red during the peak of the first and second waves and have returned to green again,” Bansal added.
