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Direct-to-consumer (D2C) unicorn Lenskart and Japanese eyewear brand Owndays have announced their merger, a move which will take their reach to 13 markets in Asia, including India, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Japan.
While the companies did not disclose the deal value, reports suggest Lenskart has bought a majority stake in Owndays for $400 million.
Owndays co-founders—CEO Shuji Tanaka and COO Take Umiyama—will continue to be the shareholders and lead the management team of Owndays Inc., which will remain operational as a separate brand. The current major shareholders of Owndays—L Catterton Asia and Mitsui & Co and Principal Investments—will exit their positions to Lenskart.
Lenskart is estimated to scale up its engineering team to 500 people in FY23 from the current 300 people. The move will help build a stronger online and omni experience for Owndays.
Lenskart has also been investing in deeper supply chain integration and automation to enhance customer proposition and unit economics.
Lenskart is also planning to expand rapidly in India and South East Asia to cater to the mass to mid-premium segments, while Owndays will be scaled to cater to premium segments.
Peyush Bansal, Co-Founder, and Group CEO at Lenskart said, “With Owndays, we move a step closer to democratising eyewear. I see Lenskart and Owndays sharing the same set of values—centred around enriching customers’ lives, caring for people in our communities, as well as continuous learning, and we also have very complementary skill sets. There is much we can achieve together which will be greater than the sum of its parts.”
Echoing his views, Owndays Founder and CEO Shuji Tanaka said, “I believe digital transformation is the key to our next phase of growth in the post-pandemic operating environment and I am excited to partner with Lenskart, which has deep expertise and intellectual capital in the information technology field. We envision that the combination of Owndays and Lenskart will bring about an abundance of innovation that will further revolutionize the eyewear industry to the benefit of people across the world.”
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