Lenskart raising Rs 392 Cr from Kedaara Capital in ongoing Series F round

Only a handful of niche e-commerce companies have been able to survive and thrived in India. Apart from Myntra (owned by Flipkart), FirstCry and Nykaa, eyewear retailer Lenskart has emerged as strong players in vertical focused e-commerce play.

The Faridabad-based company is reportedly close to turning a Unicorn with Kedaara Capital backing.

While we aren’t sure about its valuation, the company is receiving at least Rs 392 crore from the Mumbai-based private equity firm. According to documents filed with MCA, Lenskart had passed a special resolution to issue, and allot 61,43,623 Series F CCPS to Kedaara Capital at Rs 638.06 per share. 

The Series F round for the company has come amidst its negotiation with SoftBank for $350 million worth fresh round. 

An ET report had outlined that Kedaara Capital would pick up secondary shares of existing investors such as Chiratae and Premji Invest by investing around $100 million. The company slated to hit a valuation of about $1 billion after the secondary deal. 

However, Entrackr couldn’t find documents at RoC supporting the secondary transaction. Later, it might buy secondary shares as well. During its Series E round, it was valued in the range of $460 to 470 million.

Besides selling online, Lenskart has close to 500 stores and ships around 4,00,000 eyewear units per month. It follows the franchise model in offline parlance. With this round, the firm has raised over $160 million across several institutional rounds consisting of primary and secondary transactions.

RoC filings further state that the company had issued more than 5 crore bonus shares to existing investors last month. It converted more than half of CCPS Class 1 share into equity shares with a conversion ratio of 10:1. Moreover, it’s also converting the Series D CCPS held by International Finance Corporation (IFC) into equity shares at a 1:1 conversion ratio.

TR Capital, Adveq Asia, IFC, PI Opportunity Fund, Steadview Capital, ABG Capital and LTR Focus Fund will now have stakes via equity. IDG Ventures (now Chiratae Ventures) and Unilazer Ventures are early backers of Lenskart.

While the company is yet to disclose its financial performance in FY19, it controlled losses by 55% to Rs 118.04 crore in FY18 from Rs 262.87 crore in the preceding fiscal. Lenskart’s revenue had recorded a 70% jump to Rs 310.98 crore from Rs 182.02 crore in FY17.

With the growth in topline and likely reduction in losses, Lenskart is expected to display more financial discipline in FY19 as well as in ongoing fiscals.

Almost nine-year-old firm Valyoo Technologies had three products Bagskart, Jewelkart and Watchkart. However, the company shut down the three to focus on Lenskart at the beginning of 2015. It seems that the four-year-old call by the co-founders -- Peyush Bansal, Amit Chaudhary, and Sumeet Kapahi to dedicate resources and capital on building Lenskart has paid off well.