Lenskart makes tepid market debut; stock opens below issue price

Lenskart made a tepid debut on the stock exchanges today, listing at a discount to its IPO price. The shares of the eyewear retailer opened at Rs 395 per share on the NSE, about 1.7% lower than the issue price of Rs 402, and at Rs 390 on the BSE, down nearly 3%. 

The company’s Rs 7,278 crore IPO, which was subscribed around 28 times, had earlier seen strong demand from institutional and retail investors, but the listing failed to follow that enthusiasm.

The stock slipped further in early trade, dropping over 10% below the issue price before recovering some ground later. The tepid listing came despite a strong brand presence and consistent growth in Lenskart’s business. At the upper end of the price band, the company was valued at around 10X FY25 sales and close to 69X EBITDA.

The IPO was open for subscriptions from October 31 to November 4, with a price band of Rs 382–402 per equity share and minimum investment of Rs 14,874 and in multiples thereafter.

According to exchange data, Lenskart’s IPO was oversubscribed 28.26 times with the retail portion at 7.53X, QIBs (ex-anchors) at 40.35X, Non Institutional Investors (NIIs) at 18.2X and employee portion subscribed 4.96 times.

During the process of the Initial public offering (IPO), the Peyush Bansal-led company raised Rs 3,268 Cr from anchor investors.

On the financial front, Lenskart’s revenue grew 22.6% year-on-year to Rs 6,653 crore in FY25 from Rs 5,428 crore in FY24, driving the firm from a Rs 10 crore loss in FY24 to a net profit of Rs 297 crore in the last fiscal year. 

In Q1 FY26, the SoftBank-backed company posted a profit of Rs 61 crore, compared with a loss of Rs 10.9 crore in Q1 FY25, while its operating revenue rose 25% year-on-year to Rs 1,894.4 crore.