Lenskart walks into unicorn club

SoftBank Vision Fund is injecting Rs 1,956 crore into eyewear retailer Lenskart, as it continue to pour heavy amounts of capital into Indian companies. The transaction will include a few of Lenskart’s early investors, reducing their stake.

Lenskart said it will use the capital to augment technological capabilities and improve its supply chain. However it did not give a break-up of the fresh fund infusion and the secondary share purchase. According to Lenskart founder, technology and AI (artificial intelligence) are the biggest enablers in what they do and want to achieve. The company's strategy is to continuously push the bar in customer experience.

Lenskart had raised its last institutional round of funding in 2018 from Steadview Capital, tech investment firm Epiq Capital, and secondaries specialist TR Capital. That transaction had valued the eyewear retailer around Rs 3,400 crore. The company also counts TPG Growth, International Finance Corporation, PremjiInvest, and Infosys co-founder, Kris Gopalakrishnan, among its investors.

The retailer had set up its first offline store in 2014, in Chandigarh. Currently, it has 500 stores across 100 cities. It has also invested in US-based reading glasses maker ThinOptics in May last year.

SoftBank's US$100-billion Vision Fund has invested in a number of Indian companies, including payments firm Paytm, ride-hailing firm Ola, and hospitality startup OYO. In one of its latest transactions this year, it backed US-based fintech firm C2FO, which operates a marketplace that provides working capital to companies and counts India as its fastest-growing market.