By Haripriya Suresh
Reuters) -India’s largest eyewear retailer Lenskart aims to become the “Amazon of eyewear” as it bets on growing demand for prescription glasses across India and Southeast Asia, its CEO said ahead of a market debut in November.
Lenskart is seeking a valuation of up to 695 billion rupees ($7.9 billion), according to Reuters’ calculations based on its price band announced on Monday.
It plans to raise up to $828 million, making it India’s fifth largest IPO so far this year, amid a flurry of listings including Tata Capital and LG Electronics India as the country’s IPO market heads for another record year.
Founded in 2010 as an online-only retailer, Lenskart runs 2,067 stores in India and 656 overseas. The Indian eyewear market, which includes prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses, is expected to grow at a double-digit pace over the next five years.
“The aspiration for us is to become an Amazon of eyewear….because I think what is needed to change the world is technology,” co-founder and CEO Peyush Bansal said.
Lenskart is also expanding into AI-powered eye testing to offset a shortage of optometrists and betting on smart eyewear as its next growth frontier.
In July, it partnered with Qualcomm to develop AI-enabled smart glasses, with Bansal saying the firm aims to “own the full stack — firmware, hardware, and software — and build it from the ground up.”
Backed by SoftBank, Kedaara Capital and Temasek, Lenskart’s IPO will open from October 31 to November 4.
The company is issuing new shares worth 21.5 billion rupees, while founders and investors including, SoftBank and Temasek, will sell about 128 million shares.
Lenskart is expanding in India, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Japan — markets that Bansal calls some of the world’s most myopia-affected.
($1 = 87.8950 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Haripriya Suresh, Anuran Sadhu, Urvi Dugar and Anusha Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie Adler, Diane Craft and Sonia Cheema)
