New Deal May Help Lenskart Touch 3,000cr Valuation

Faridabad-based eyewear solutions Company Lenskart is undertaking a secondary transaction by a group of investors that is estimated to be valued at about Rs 3,000 crore.

The deal is the latest example of investor backed deals with some of India’s most richly-valued startups doubling down on their positions in the ventures,

Recently, China’s Alibaba Group had led a $200 million equity financing round in online grocer Big-Basket, which also had a prominent secondary component of $80 million. Prior to that, in January, the Chinese ecommerce behemoth had also put in $35 million in XpressBees, the logistics arm of FirstCry, a deal that will also have a secondary purchase of shares from existing investors.

Separately, Ant Financial, the payments affiliate of the Chinese conglomerate, led a $200 million equity financing round in food delivery and listings company Zomato earlier in February, that saw long-time investor Info Edge dilute its holding worth $50 million in the Gurgaon-based company.

According to the two sources familiar with the deal, the latest transaction, estimated at Rs 400 crore, and which is also the third secondary-focused play in Lenskart over the last 18 months, will see TR Capital and PremjiInvest, the personal investment arm of Wipro Chairman Azim Premji, up their stakes in the seven-year-old company, having agreed to buy shares from IDG Ventures India, an early investor in Lenskart and private equity investor TPG Growth.

Peyush Bansal, chief executive of Lenskart said, “Lenskart is now a growth-stage company, which became EBITDA positive in December last year, and which has continued into January. It is natural for some of the early investors to seek liquidity.”

According to the sources,the deal is expected to close by mid-March. It is, however, yet unclear if International Finance Corp, the private sector investment arm of the World Bank, Zurich-based asset management company Adveq and Ronnie Screwvala-founded Unilazer Ventures, the other three investors in the company, are also participating in the deal or not.

In a return of an earlier transaction in September 2016, PremjiInvest will, once again, pick up an undisclosed stake from IDG Ventures’ first fund. The earlystage, tech-focused venture capital firm will, however, continue to remain invested in Lenskart from both its funds. The transaction at the time had valued Lenskart at close to Rs 2,000 crore.

Additionally, secondary-focused investor TR Capital will buy a part of TPG Growth’s shares in Lenskart, estimated at 8%-10%. In January last year, Screwvala had upped his ownership in Lenskart to 19%, after the promoters sold a portion of their shares.

IDG Ventures India owns a little over 12% stake in Lenskart, while TPG Growth holds almost 22% stake in the company, according to data collated by business intelligence platform Paper.vc. PremjiInvest, through its PI Opportunities Fund, owns 12.4%, with TR Capital owning a 1.27% stake. In an earlier conversation with ET, Bansal had said that the company remained on track to be profitable by March 2018.