Eyewear startup Lenskart has raised $500 million in funding from a wholly-owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), in what marks one of the largest funding rounds in the recent past.
The startup has raised the capital at its existing valuation of $4.5 billion.
Lenskart will use the funds to scale its international presence in Asia and the Middle East, besides expanding its retail network in India.
The investment will be made via a purchase of both primary and secondary shares and will result in ADIA becoming one of the largest shareholders in the company, Lenskart said in a statement on Thursday, Moneycontrol reported.
The company said completion of the transaction is subject to receipt of statutory and regulatory approvals.
The latest round will take the total funding raised by Lenskart close to $750 million since 2022, it said.
Lenskart has over 2,000 stores of which 1,500 were in India with the rest in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
The company’s new factory, which will manufacture 20 million pairs of eyewear that the company plans to ship next year, is expected to be operational soon.
Lenskart, founded in 2008 by Peyush Bansal, Amit Chaudhary, Neha Bansal and Sumeet Kapahi, joined the coveted unicorn club in 2019.
It counts SoftBank, Alpha Wave Global, Temasek, KKR and TPG among others as its backers.
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