ADIA Becomes The 3rd-Biggest Shareholder Of Lenskart
Lenskart, the multifarious eyewear brand, has achieved a milestone by signing a $500 Million deal with the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA). This is one of the biggest investment deals to be made by ADIA in quite some time, which is also behind subsidising the giant company, Jio. Three months since it was declared that AIDA plans to invest $400 Million in the omnichannel eyewear brand, Chrys Capital entered the picture with an additional $100 Million investment.
In the understanding, both parties agreed to share secondary and primary stakes, which makes Abu Dhabi Investment Authority one of the biggest shareowners of Lenskart. Post the investment deal, according to a communal press statement, it has been reported that the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority acquired 10% of Lenskart’s share, which approximately values at $4.2 billion.
Currently, the largest shareholder of Lenskart is SoftBank with a 19% share of the company, while Premji Invest stands in the second position with a 10.4% company share. Therefore, with the signing of the investment deal with the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the firm is said to take third place with 10% of the company share. Lenskart’s CEO, Peyush Bansal, made a statement regarding the deal that they are still at the early stage of the new journey and aims to fulfil their desired result wherever required by working hard. He added that by joining hands with AIDA, the company looks forward to venturing into the next stage of its adventure.
Lenskart initially started as a small optical brand in 2010 by an ex-Microsoft techie, Peyush Bansal, which has progressively emerged as one of the leading omnichannel eyewear merchants and manufacturers in India. It is known that Lenskart highly focuses on online marketing to fulfil the needs of its customers globally, however, the brand also focuses on its offline presence, which impresses us with a whopping 1200+ Lenskart Stores so far. Not long ago, Lenskart announced that the company plans to expand to more global countries. And in July 2022, Lenskart obtained a share of the Japanese DTC brand, Owndays. Additionally, the brand has also made its presence in Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and The United States.
The monster eyewear company is also supported by high-profile investment companies, such as Alpha Wave Incubation, Kedaara Capital, Steadview Capital, and SoftBank. Nearly a year after the global investment firm, KKR, signed a $95 deal with Lenskart, the Alpha Wave Incubation managed to boost $100 million in April 2022. As recorded in the yearly financial statement for the 2022 fiscal year, the operating income of Lenskart witnessed a massive 66% growth in its revenue with ₹1,503 crores. On the other hand, the brand registered a ₹102 crore loss from the total cost, which had a 72% surge in 2022. Alternatively, Lenskart made a profit of ₹29 crores in the fiscal year of 2021, whereas, its operational expenditure in the fiscal year of 2022 inflated to ₹183 crores, which was approximately ₹1.15 per unit. Despite that, Lenskart announced that the brand is a commercial success today.
The Peyush Bansal-owned company exudes optimistic energy as it strives towards expanding its operations in the coming days. Lenskart is also looking forward to building a new manufactory, which is predicted to launch shortly. The new factory is anticipated to take a noteworthy part in producing up to 20 million sets of eyewear, which the brand intends to export the eyewear pairs by the coming year.