A need to manufacture something of his own and a passion to be at the top in whatever he did, this is the tale of Peyush Bansal who gave India it’s leading online eyewear forum- LensKart, which changed the way Indians deal with their eyes. An electrical engineer in IT, Control and Automation by degree, from McGill University in Canada, he found himself in a happy situation post the completion of his engineering degree when he got a job with Microsoft in the US.
However, for being there for some time, and paying little heed to the incredible time he was having at the firm, Peyush chose to follow his heart’s calling. He returned to India to pursue his MBA from IIM Bangalore. It was around this time that he started his organization Valyoo Technologies with SearchMyCampus as his first business.
It was the accomplishment of this endeavor that at last pushed Peyush to shift his focus towards the need to deal with greater, more relevant issues that affected individuals on a personal level. That is the point at which the disturbing figures of the optical industry in India grabbed his eye. He discovered that around 600-700 million Indians needed spectacles, out of which just 170 million use any. With this information to depend on and a craving to reduce the consumer problems in sight, Peyush finally launched Lenskart in 2010.
By March 2011, the Delhi NCR (National Capital Region)- based startup, Lenskart was selling eyeglasses and shades too. Today, very almost a decade later, it is one of the greatest examples of success stories in the Indian startup ecosystem, seeing huge development and having entered the elite unicorn (startup esteemed over $1 billion) club a year ago. Notwithstanding beginning as an online organization, the organization presently has 600 retail stores and is looking to include more, to complement its e-commerce business.
To be honest, when we started we only had a vision, we didn’t know we would be able to make an impact on the size that we are making today. So, we didn’t have to convince investors of this size, they were happy with a much smaller size. It was difficult for investors to see this (size) but honestly, they never saw it this big. We also never saw it reaching this scale,” says Peyush Bansal.
Japanese multinational conglomerate SoftBank invested $275 million in the startup from its second ‘Vision Fund’, in December 2019. The speculation denoted the Masayoshi Son-led gathering’s first investment in India from ‘Vision Fund-II’. The transaction which occurred following quite after several months of negotiations incorporated a couple of the startup’s initial investors trimming their stake.
SoftBank invested $231 million alongside a secondary transaction of $40-$45 million to purchase out part-stakes from three of the startup’s existing speculators – TPG Group, PremjiInvest, and International Finance Corp. the company raised around $380 in primary equity financing. For the financial year ending March 2020, the organization figured out how to dramatically increase its sales to Rs 1,000 crore from Rs 486 crore in the previous year.
For more information, visit the website of The Companycheck
