Lenskart raises $28 million from Avendus Future Leaders Fund II

This is part of a $200-$250 million funding round led by Alpha Wave Global that it was set to close at a valuation of $4.5-$5 billion, ET had reported on April 13, citing sources.

Alpha Wave Global had infused around $100 million, ET reported citing regulatory filings.

Since then, existing investor Epiq Capital has infused around $12 million into Lenskart.

Lenskart will invest a portion of the funding round in its direct-to-commerce (D2C) roll-up commerce venture Neso Brands.

Existing investors such as Temasek, Schroder Adveq and others are also participating in this round. It comes some eight months after the SoftBank-backed startup closed a $315 million fund infusion.

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Temasek had co-led that round along with Alpha Wave, valuing the company at $2.5 billion.

The Peyush Bansal-founded company has more than 900 stores in India and had plans to scale that up to 1,000 by the end of March. The company expanded to the Middle East and Southeast Asia after the funding round last year.

Lenskart’s latest financing comes at a time when late-stage startups have started to see a decline in aggressive valuations for large deals amid
global corrections in startup funding.

Lenskart entered the unicorn club in 2020, after
a $231 million funding from SoftBank Vision Fund II.

It also planned an initial public offering (IPO), after leading Indian startups tapped the public markets. Those plans have, however, now been put on hold owing to uncertainties in the public markets.