NEW DELHI: Lenskart has bagged a fresh $100 million in funding from private equity firm ChrysCapital. The investment which includes a mix of primary and secondary share purchases takes the startup’s total fund count to about $1.6 billion. In a statement, Lenskart said that the financing will help fund the company’s expansion and growth plans.
At a time when the flow of funding into startups has become selective and investors are taking time to close deals, Lenskart has managed to garner the backing of ChrysCapital barely three months after raising $500 million from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) at a valuation of $4.5 billion, perhaps underlining the viability of its business model. The ADIA investment was, however, largely secondary in nature.
Founder and chief executive officer of Lenskart, Peyush Bansal, said eyewear, as a lifestyle category, is at a very early stage in its evolution, and there is a lot of opportunity to make glasses that can uplift our quality of life significantly as seen in shoes, apparel and watches.
The Gurgaon-based omni-channel eyewear brand services 20 million customers and is expanding its operations beyond India to cover Middle East and parts of Asia. Rajiv Batra, senior vice-president at ChrysCapital, which has over $5 billion worth of assets under management across eight funds, said that with the acquisition of Japanese D2C eyewear brand Owndays, Lenskart has an opportunity to expand across more than 10 Asian countries in addition to India.
At a time when the flow of funding into startups has become selective and investors are taking time to close deals, Lenskart has managed to garner the backing of ChrysCapital barely three months after raising $500 million from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) at a valuation of $4.5 billion, perhaps underlining the viability of its business model. The ADIA investment was, however, largely secondary in nature.
Founder and chief executive officer of Lenskart, Peyush Bansal, said eyewear, as a lifestyle category, is at a very early stage in its evolution, and there is a lot of opportunity to make glasses that can uplift our quality of life significantly as seen in shoes, apparel and watches.
The Gurgaon-based omni-channel eyewear brand services 20 million customers and is expanding its operations beyond India to cover Middle East and parts of Asia. Rajiv Batra, senior vice-president at ChrysCapital, which has over $5 billion worth of assets under management across eight funds, said that with the acquisition of Japanese D2C eyewear brand Owndays, Lenskart has an opportunity to expand across more than 10 Asian countries in addition to India.
