Lenskart is an Indian multinational optical prescription eyewear

retail chain A chain store or retail chain is a retail outlet in which several locations share a brand, central management and standardized business practices. They have come to dominate the retail and dining markets and many service categories, in many pa ...

, based in

Faridabad Faridabad is the most populous city in the Indian state of Haryana and a part of Delhi National Capital Region. It is one of the major satellite cities around Delhi and is located 284 kilometres south of the state capital Chandigarh. The ri ...

. Lenskart had 900+ stores in over 46 cities in India. Its manufacturing facility in New Delhi manufactures 3 lakh glasses a month. Lenskart is building a megaunit in

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...

, an automated factory which will manufacture 5 crore glasses annually.

Revenue and Valuation

The company had a valuation of $1 billion by December 2019 after Softbank invested around $275 million. Peyush Bansal, a former Microsoft employee, founded Lenskart in 2010 along with Amit Chaudhary and Sumeet Kapahi. In 2020, Lenskart generated total revenue of ₹1,000+

crore A crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes ten million (10,000,000 or 107 in scientific notation) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. It is written as 1,00,00,000 with the local 2,2,3 style of digit group separators (one lakh is e ...

. Financial backers of Lenskart include TPG Growth,

International Finance Corporation The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is an international financial institution that offers investment, advisory, and asset-management services to encourage private-sector development in less developed countries. The IFC is a member of t ...

and Adveq Management.

Ratan Tata Ratan Naval Tata, GBE (born 28 December 1937) is an Indian industrialist and former chairman of Tata Sons. He was also the chairman of the Tata Group from 1990 to 2012, serving also as interim chairman from October 2016 through February 2017. ...

and

Kris Gopalakrishnan Senapathy "Kris" Gopalakrishnan is an Indian billionaire businessman who is recognized as a global business and technology thought leader for his role in growing the IT services industry worldwide. He co-founded Infosys, where he served as the ...

have also invested in Lenskart. In March 2018,

Wipro Wipro Limited (formerly, Western India Palm Refined Oils Limited) is an Indian multinational corporation that provides information technology, consulting and business process services. Thierry Delaporte is serving as CEO and managing director ...

’s Chairman

Azim Premji Azim Hashim Premji (born 24 July 1945) is an Indian businessman, investor, engineer, and philanthropist, who was the chairman of Wipro Limited. Premji remains a non-executive member of the board and founder chairman. He is informally known as ...

invested ₹4 crore in the group, taking the valuation of the company to ₹3,000 crore. In 2018, the company became profitable, EBITDA positive (

EBITDA A company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (commonly abbreviated EBITDA, pronounced , , or ) is a measure of a company's profitability of the operating business only, thus before any effects of indebtedness, stat ...

). Lenskart launched the eyewear brand John Jacobs in 2017. The company is in talks with Japanese group

SoftBank is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the ...

as well as the private equity firm Kedaara Capital for investment. In October 2017, Lenskart's first brand ambassador was

Katrina Kaif Katrina Kaif (; born Katrina Turquotte; 16 July 1983) is a British actress who works in Hindi-language films. One of the highest-paid actresses in India, she has received accolades, including four Screen Awards and four Zee Cine Awards, in a ...

. In March 2019, the company hired

Bhuvan Bam Bhuvan Bam (; born Bhuvan Avnindra Shankar Bam; 22 January 1994) is an Indian comedian, writer, singer, actor, songwriter, and YouTube personality from Delhi, India. He is known for his comedy channel on YouTube named ''BB Ki Vines.'' Early l ...

as their first male brand ambassador. In June 2022, Lenskart announced the acquisition of a majority stake in the Japanese eyewear brand Owndays. The deal valued Owndays at around 400 million.

References

External links

*{{url, https://www.lenskart.com/, Official site 2010 establishments in Delhi Eyewear companies of India Eyewear brands of India