Eyewear retailer Lenskart is in talks to close a Rs 430 crore pre-IPO placement with investors such as DMart promoter Radhakishan Damani and SBI Mutual Fund, according to people in the know. The company plans to list on the bourses early November — in what will be among the biggest IPOs by an Indian new-age company.
ET had reported earlier that Lenskart is targeting a valuation of Rs 70,000-75,000 crore (around $9 billion) for its public issue.
The pre-IPO funding was carved out of the fresh issue component of its upcoming Rs 8,000 crore IPO.
Per its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP), the Gurugram-based omnichannel retailer plans to raise Rs 2,150 crore in fresh equity alongside a secondary share sale of 132 million shares by existing investors, including TPG Growth, Kedaara Capital, and TR Capital.
The Peyush Bansal-led firm counts SoftBank, Temasek, and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority among its top backers.
Lenskart had last closed a funding round in 2024 led by Temasek and US-based asset manager Fidelity, which valued the company at $5 billion. Subsequently, in June this year, Fidelity marked up the fair value of Lenskart in its books to $6.1 billion.
Lenskart did not respond to ET’s queries at the time of publishing the story. Text messages sent to Damani seeking his comments went unanswered.
Investor interest in Lenskart’s pre-IPO placement comes on the back of renewed appetite for new-age stocks — as seen last month in the massive 57% pop on listing of Urban Company, the at-home services platform.
Besides Lenskart, several other large new-economy IPOs are in the making — including stockbroking startup Groww, payments platform PhonePe, ecommerce marketplace Meesho, and edtech company PhysicsWallah.
Bansal, who founded Lenskart along with Neha Bansal, Amit Chaudhary, and Sumeet Kapahi, had bought 2.5% stake in the company for Rs 222 crore in July from investors SoftBank, Chiratae Ventures, Kedaara Capital, TR Capital, Temasek, Premji Invest, and others.
Winner in the coveted Startup of the Year category at the ET Startup Awards 2024, Lenskart turned profitable in fiscal 2025 — posting a net profit of Rs 297 crore, turning around from a Rs 10 crore loss in FY24. Its revenue increased 22% in FY25 to Rs 6,625 crore, from Rs 5,428 crore the year before.
Of Lenskart’s total revenues in the year-ended March 2025, over 40% came from international markets, including Taiwan, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and west Asia. The company’s standalone international revenue of Rs 2,638 crore in FY25 is a 17% increase from Rs 2,265 crore in fiscal 2024.
Lenskart has noted in its draft prospectus that it plans to deploy about Rs 272 crore of the fresh capital to open new stores, while around Rs 591 crore will go towards leasing, rentals, and other operational expenses for its network of over 2,700 outlets.
