Lenskart is likely to become the next startup to join the Indian Unicorns club. This development comes as the company is reportedly set to raise fresh funding of $350 million from the Japanese investment giant, SoftBank Group. The valuation being arrived at now stands at $1.3 billion. What’s more, Lenskart is seeing its valuation jump almost triple fold, from the last time, around $460 to $470 million to the current $1.3 billion.
Observers see a new trend in a major investor like SoftBank taking key positions in startups that have the traditional brick and mortar model of business though with some online presence as well. The Japanese investor had chosen FisrtCry earlier to make an investment. That was $150 million.
The current report on the SoftBank investment in Lenskart indicates that the investor was willing to pitch in with a larger amount if the eyewear retailer was ready to foray overseas. It is said Lenskart was not keen on the proposal, though for the record, the company has already stepped beyond Indian shores to Singapore, where it has opened a few stores. This number may be taken to 50-60 over time and then the plan is to expand to markets like Philippines, Taiwan and the Middle East.
It has also been reported that a proposal by the Carlyle group to make an investment in Lenskart fell through following a difference over valuation.
Lenskart’s offline presence too, is an afterthought since it started off as an online venture first. The stores came later turning the company into an omni-channel business.
Though the official financial figures for the company for the latest financial year are not known, the indications are that the company clocked a turnover of Rs 500 crore and incurred a loss of Rs 70 crore. These are much improved figures over the previous periods.
Fashioning itself as the Amazon of eyewear, Lenskart wants to offer its products at low prices and it has chalked out some ambitious plans to setup 2000 offline stores over the next five years. There is an app Lookr that the company has developed and would want to leverage the app to add more customers through application of latest technologies.
In terms of the investors to have invested in Lenskart, there are Ronnie Screwvala’s Unilazer Ventures and TR Capital, TPG Growth, the World Bank private investment arm International Finance Corp, Chiratae Ventures and asset management firm Adveq Management. SoftBank has already made a secondary share acquisition and now this large tranche will make it a major investor in the newly turned Unicorn.
