MUMBAI: Sovereign wealth fund Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) is looking to acquire stake in eyewear retailer Lenskart for about USD 500 million. The negotiations for the stake sale between the eyewear startup, owned by Peyush Bansal who is one of the judges in the reality show Shark Tank India and ADIA are in advance stages, according to sources.
ADIA, which is an investment management agency investing funds on behalf of the Abu Dhabi government, wants to buy a mix of existing Lenskart shares and new equity. The deal, which would value Lenskart at more than $4 billion, may be announced as soon as this week, according to sources.
Lenskart is attracting investments at a time when start-ups are undergoing financial contraints and are laying off employees.
Lenskart, which leverages technology and supply chain automation to sell glasses and contact lenses directly to consumers, was co-founded in 2010 by Peyush Bansal, who now serves as its CEO. The start-up has grown into India’s largest optical brand and is backed by other investors like KKR, SoftBank Group, Temasek Holdings, and PremjiInvest.
The eyewear retailer was also in talks with private equity firm ChrysCapital, which has backed start-ups Dream11, Xpressbees and FirstCry in India, for an investment of about $100 million in Lenskart. In June last year, Lenskart acquired Japanese eyewear brand Owndays for about $400 million, which is expected to help its expansion into the Southeast Asian markets.
While most of Lenskart’s 1,100 stores are in India, the firm aims to continue expansion with 400 new stores as it looks to scale its revenue. Lenskart’s consolidated revenue from operations grew 66% to Rs ,502 crore in FY22, compared to Rs 905 crore last year.
Over the past few years, Lenskart has conducted secondary share sales to pave the way for partial exits to investors such as Chiratae Ventures and others. Since its inception in 2010, Lenskart has raised a total of $1.06 billion, including through secondary share sales, according to Tracxn -a data platform for privately held start-ups.