The company: who and what
Lenskart is one of India’s leading eyewear retailers — founded around 2008–10 by Peyush Bansal and his team.
Key features:
- Omni-channel presence: started online, now a large brick & mortar footprint.
- Manufacturing/design/retail integration: they claim control over many parts of the value‐chain (frames, lenses, etc) which can help margins.
- Global ambition: beyond India, Lenskart has stores overseas (Middle East, Southeast Asia) to broaden reach.
So, Lenskart is not just a local shop-chain, but a somewhat scaled retail and manufacturing business in the eyewear segment. That gives its IPO a bigger canvas.
The IPO: key details
Here are the salient details of the IPO:
- Price band: ₹ 382 to ₹ 402 per share.
- Lot size: 37 shares per lot.
- Fresh issue (capital raise): approx ₹ 2,150 crore via new shares.
- Offer for sale (OFS) by existing shareholders: approx ₹ 5,128 crore at upper band.
- Total issue size (fresh + OFS) ~ ₹ 7,278 crore at upper band.
- Key dates:
What the company says it’ll do with the funds
Lenskart intends to use the fresh issue proceeds for:
- Setting up new “company-owned company-operated” (CoCo) stores across India. ~₹ 273 crore.
- Lease, rent, and license costs for those stores: ~₹ 591 crore.
- Technology and cloud infrastructure investments (AI, backend, etc). ~₹ 213 crore.
- The rest for brand marketing, general corporate purposes, acquisitions.
Thus the capital raise is not just for expansion, but also for building up tech and brand — important in a consumer-retail business.
Strengths & opportunities
Some of the positive aspects that support Lenskart’s IPO story:
- Growth & profitability: Lenskart turned a net profit of ~₹ 297 crore in FY25, after a loss in FY24. Revenue rose ~22% year-on-year.
- Large addressable market: With rising vision issues, increasing consumer awareness, expanding insurance/health coverage, and growing retail penetration, the eyewear market has good tail-winds.
- Omni-channel model: Having both online + offline stores allows wider reach and better customer access.
- Backing & credibility: Investors such as SoftBank Group Corp., Temasek Holdings, and others have backed Lenskart.
These factors help build confidence that Lenskart is not just a small player, but a scaled business with growth potential.
Risks & things to watch
Despite the positives, there are risks and caveats you must be aware of:
- Margin / input risks: A significant portion of raw material purchases come from China; any supply disruptions, price hikes or currency risks can hit margins.
- Competition: The eyewear space has established players (both offline and online), and Lenskart’s ability to maintain differentiation (brand, product, service) will matter.
- Consumer behaviour & retail risk: Retail business, especially consumer discretionary, is vulnerable to macro‐slowdowns, cost inflation, rent/lease burdens.
- Growth execution: The plan is ambitious (new stores, tech buildout). Execution risk is real — if stores don’t perform or costs balloon, outcomes may disappoint.
- Lock-in / investor exit risk: Some existing shareholders are selling via OFS. This is not necessarily bad, but shows part of the liquidity event is for existing investors, not purely cap-raise. Oversubscription pressures could produce short-term listing gains, but long term depends on fundamentals.
- Governance / controls: In the IPO disclosures, some internal control weaknesses were flagged (e.g., inventory software audit trail).
My take: is this an interesting IPO?
Yes — I find Lenskart an interesting IPO for the following reasons:
- It sits at the intersection of consumer retail + health/eyewear, which is less crowded than many pure tech or food-retail plays.
- It has shown a turnaround into profit, which is positive; many recent IPOs are still deep in losses.
- The business has scale and potential for growth (both India + overseas).
However:
- Being interesting doesn’t mean it’s a guaranteed winner. You’ll want to watch post-listing fundamentals: store growth vs store profitability, margin trends, online vs offline mix, ability to defend brand, raw material cost inflation.
- The IPO pricing (₹382-402 per share) sets high expectations. The market will expect growth to justify that valuation.
- If you’re investing, you should consider the time horizon: a listing pop is possible, but long-term value depends on execution and competitive environment.
Who should consider applying?
- Retail investors who believe in the eyewear market growth story and are comfortable with listed retail/consumer-business risk.
- Investors willing to hold for a few years rather than flip immediately.
- Those who have done their homework, understand the risks (mentioned above), and are comfortable with the valuation.
Who might give it a pass / be cautious?
- Investors who only chase listing day gains and don’t want to monitor business fundamentals.
- Conservative investors uncomfortable with retail/consumer growth with execution risk.
- Investors who believe the price is “fully priced” and prefer to wait for post-listing performance.
Final thoughts
The Lenskart IPO is a potentially important event: it could become one of the larger consumer segment IPOs in India in 2025, and opens up a new category (eyewear retail) to public markets. The combination of scale, growth, an improving financials base and a large market opportunity gives it appeal.
But like all IPOs, there’s a gap between expectations and achievement. The price band sets a high bar. If you choose to participate, do so with an understanding of both the promise and the risks.
