India’s leading omnichannel D2C eyewear brand Lenskart has announced its plans to invest up to $2mn in each of the selected startups that are synergistic to the eyewear, eye-care, and omnichannel retail sectors. In addition to the infusion of capital, select startups will benefit from Lenskart’s unprecedented market access via 700+ retail stores and online channels across India, Singapore, Middle East, and the US.
Lenskart Vision Fund is a program through which lenskart plan to invest in startups synergistic to the eyewear, eye-care, and omnichannel retail sector, said the eyewear brand on Friday. Lenskart is an Indian optical prescription eyewear retail chain based in Faridabad, India. Lenskart had stores in over 70 cities in India. Its manufacturing facility in Delhi manufactures over 300,000 glasses a month. Through the fund, Lenskart is to invest up to $2 million in each of the selected startups. In addition to the capital, Lenskart will also provide select startups market access via its 700 retail stores and online channels all over India, Singapore, West Asia, and the US.
The access to Lenskart’s state-of-the-art vertically integrated supply chain, word-class technology stack for facilitating omnichannel retail, tech expertise in building futuristic technologies for eyewear will provide select startups the right ecosystem to make consumer-centric, technology-led, disruptive products and services. Apart from this, the senior leadership team at Lenskart will mentor the startups to navigate challenges during the early phase of business building. Speaking on the launch, founder and CEO of Lenskart, Mr. Peyush Bansal, said, “We have traveled a challenging journey as a startup to become a unicorn. We believe it’s time to give back to the system and support exceptional entrepreneurs, aiding them to build scalable enterprises. We have a decade of experience and expertise in building and scaling a D2C business through technology which startups can leverage to realize their vision of building world-class businesses.”
Since the initiative is designed to help startups, Lenskart will select early-growth stage ventures with clear in-market evidence of traction and customer adoption. Focus sectors for investing include D2C eyewear and eye care brands, technologies enabling access to vision care, eye testing technologies, omnichannel retail solutions across logistics, supply chain, merchandising, marketing, in-store automation, and deep tech solutions eyewear, retail, and e-commerce. The Lenskart Vision Fund initiative is being run in partnership with Applyifi.com and endeavors to attract startups with a precise product-market fit and a defensible competitive differentiator.
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