Global investment firm KKR has signed definitive agreements to invest $95 million in Lenskart, an omni-channel eye-wear retailer, through a secondary stake acquisition. As part of the transaction, existing investors TPG Growth and TR Capital, who first invested in Lenskart in late 2014, will each divest a portion of their holding in the company.

KKR would make the investment from its Asian private equity fund. Avendus Capital advised Lenskart on the transaction.

Upon the completion of the transaction, KKR will leverage its experience working with leading technology and eyewear companies globally to support Lenskart in expanding its presence in India. It will also help the Indian company to scale up its growing operations overseas and enhance digital offerings to augment customers’ virtual and omni-store experience, the company said in a statement.

Have achieved the final close of Asian Fund IV: KKR

Boosting access to eyewear

Peyush Bansal, CEO of Lenskart, said, “More than 600 million people in India and 4.5 billion people globally need vision correction, but only a fraction of them use it due to a lack of access, awareness and high-quality, affordable solutions. Lenskart was founded to address this gap by leveraging technology to make eyewear accessible to everyone — first in India, and now worldwide. We are also working on the larger human agenda of improving people’s quality of life by allowing them to ‘Be More and Do More’ with their eyewear through our innovative products such as Lenskart Airflex, E-lock, Neuro-science lenses and Lenskart BLU”.

Gaurav Trehan, Partner at KKR, said, “As a technology-driven business, Lenskart is a strong, home-grown disruptor in India’s rapidly expanding eyewear industry”.

Lenskart to strengthen tech team with more hires

Set up in 2010, Lenskart is the largest service provider for eyewear in India, serving over 7 million customers annually through online, mobile application and 730 omni-channel stores in 175 cities across the country. Later in 2019, Lenskart also expanded to Singapore.

Recent technology-focused investments for KKR in Asia include Adopt A Cow, a digitalised, direct-to-consumer dairy company in China, NetStars, the operator of Japan’s largest QR code payment gateway, and Walnut Programming, a children’s programming education company in China.

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