Lenskart.com
- Jinal Sanghavi
- Apr 13
- 8 min read
Updated: Jul 24
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This is a company that focused and nailed one vertical and organised the very unorganised largely single store optician and eyecare market in India. And, it is not just another me-too company of a Western counterpart but bigger than any other global omnichannel eyewear marketplace.Â
This wasn't always the case.Â
Early on, the company also sold watches, bags, and jewelry through Watchkart.com, Bagskart.com and Jewelskart.com largely replicating the Titan model online. But, sharp and good advice from early investor Ronnie Screwvala made them narrow their focus and close down all other businesses to focus on Lenskart.com. This company is soon to IPO at an estimated value of $10bn and hence the timing couldn't be better. Its full-stack manufacturing and crazy funny marketing are its superpowers. From its 2010 inception to 2025 today, with a revenue of ₹5,428 crore (~$700mn) last year, operating 2000+ stores across in India, UAE, Japan, and South East Asia, this is a great company that played many of its cards right. We cover the founding story, the landscape of eyewear in India, some the the technological innovations and marketing experiments and so much more.
Key topics discussed at timestamp on the Lenskart Disruption Diaries podcast episode:
0:00 - Introduction to Podcast & Hosts: Shantanu and Jinal introduce the show, reference previous episodes, and set the context for discussing Lenskart as a disruptive business.
4:13 - Lenskart’s Genesis: Shantanu gives an overview of Lenskart’s founding in 2010, its rise to a $6 billion company, and outlines the journey to market leadership. They preview major discussion themes for the episode.
8:27 - Personal Connection & Consumer Experience: Jinal shares her long-standing personal connection to Lenskart, her order history, and talks about affordability and variety. She recounts converting her husband from Titan to Lenskart.
12:40 - Eyewear Pricing Disruption: Jinal compares Lenskart’s pricing to traditional opticians, emphasizing affordability and product range as key factors for repeated purchases.
16:54- Product Assortment & Appeal: Discussion about Lenskart’s broad product selection, repeat purchases, and customer conversion anecdotes.
21:07 - Lenskart’s Larger Purpose, Vision & Social Impact: The hosts discuss the company’s mission—not just selling eyewear but improving vision and productivity across India. Mentions 70% of Indian adults needing corrective lenses.
25:21 - Business Model & Founder Story: Story of founder Piyush Bansal—his journey, career pivots, initial e-commerce sites, and the critical role of focus (with investor Ronnie Screwvala’s influence).
29:34- Co-Founders & Company Formation: Background about the co-founders, Bansal’s inspiration from Bill Gates, Amit Chaudhary’s technology and operations background, Sumit Kapahi’s supply chain expertise.
33:48- Eyewear Industry Structure & Lenskart’s Strategy: Overview of India’s eyewear sector—fragmented, dominated by mom-and-pop stores, and the challenge of scaling organized retail. Lenscart’s strategy to penetrate deeper into smaller cities.
38:01 - Operational Innovation & Customer Experience: Details on omni-channel innovation—online/offline integration, AR/VR features, store experiences, and NPS score of 80. Discussion about customer data, automated store merchandising, and focus on service excellence.
42:15 - Full Stack Manufacturing & Premium Segment: Shantanu and Jinal explain how Lenskart manages the supply chain end-to-end (factory and tech investment), for both affordability and quality, and touch on launch of premium brand John Jacobs.
The Landscape
Lenskart operates in the ~$200 bn global eyewear market. This market includes spectacles, sunglasses, and contact lenses, with prescription glasses and contact lenses driving significant growth. The eyewear market in India is worth $6 billion and growing ~10-15 per cent a year. Yet, it has not seen many start-ups. Partly because it is a complex business and cannot be easily distributed. It's not like you can add a tab on your website and find suppliers.
Start-ups like Yebhi and Healthkart have tried selling eyewear online. There are websites like Glassic and Lensclues, while lens major GKB started a website, gkboptical.com, and put serious money into it. But Lenskart has cracked what others haven’t. The CEO Peyush credits it to be about trust. “You want to go to someone who will get your lenses right. Some of the bets they have taken like free eye check-up, at home check-ups, etc. have helped them.
The company is built around 3 industry gaps:
1)Â Â Â Â Â Awareness: Most people in India are not aware they needed glasses. Reducing friction in getting customers to get their eyes checked and reducing the taboo around eyeglasses has been key to unlocking their growth
2)Â Â Â Â Â Access: India has only 25,000 opticians, of which 22,000 are single-shop opticians. Lenskart focused on improving access by home eye check-ups, offline stores, home trials and a mobile app. Users can book an eye check-up on an app, just like they book a cab now. Consumers in Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns are not going to buy on the internet so easily. However, eyewear has a lot of recourses: A customer could come back with a problem. "We launched stores in 2014, as we wanted these to be a trust point and a trial point," says Bansal.
3)Â Â Â Â Â Affordability: Lenskart has removed intermediaries and complexities in operations by centralising lens manufacturing and cutting, and focusing on high quality at an affordable price. Its value-for-money price positioning helps it rake in volumes - its average ticket price is Rs 1,500-2,000. A similar product, with thin anti-glare lenses, will cost Rs 5,000-6,000 at a high-street store
About the Founders
Peyush Bansal, the CEO of Lenskart, is no stranger to the public eye. He is famous as a judge on SharkTank, and I must say he comes across as one of the most balanced of the lot. He was raised in a middle class family, studied engineering at McGill University, Canada, when he failed to crack the IIT entrance exams and worked as a Program Manager at Microsoft in the U.S. before returning to India to pursue entrepreneurship. He’s always been entrepreneurial. In university in Canada, he was building websites with his friend as a side hustle. Before his current company, He launched SearchMyCampus.com in 2007, which was an online classifieds platform designed to help college students find solutions to common such as housing, internships, part-time jobs, books, and transportation. Peyush has been very vocal about how a meeting with Bill Gates when he was working at Microsoft early in his career was a key moment in his life. It changed his outlook to work, where we wanted to solve large problems at scale, similar to Microsoft. Bill Gates has been a long-time hero for the young engineer.
Amit Chaudhary, his friend and cofounder has been credited as the technology and operational backbone of Lenskart. He was instrumental in the aggressive offline expansion of Lenskart, establishing over 2,000 stores across India and other countries. He has a background in computer science
Just before it raised money in 2011, the duo roped in Sumeet Kapahi as the third founder. Kapahi was a business development manager of Luxotica India Eyewear, the company behind the big brand Rayban. From his experience is how they knew the nuts and bolts of the complex eyewear industry.
Initially, the company focused on selling contact lenses online. One of the key innovations in about 2013 was when it introduced the "try-at-home" service, allowing customers to try glasses at home before purchasing. This was a pioneering move in the Indian eyewear market. They also launched launched home eye check-up services, Lenskart@Home, providing convenience and accessibility to customer. The cofounder credit all the innovations in the business to listening to customers very closely and building on top of that as technologists.
Then the company introduced an advanced robotic technology-driven manufacturing plant, the first of its kind in India. It also witnessed the expansion of our empire to 500+ retail stores across the country. Its unique franchisee model for stores has helped it scale up fast. The franchisee carries a limited stock for display. The order is placed online and serviced by the company.
A franchisee typically invests Rs 25 lakh to do up the store, in eye-testing equipment and people, earns 30 per cent on an order, and breaks even in a couple of years. But, it's the mobile app that brings most traffic. Lenskart launched its app last year. It also started a service for consumers to try five frames at home and then order.
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Supply Chain
Lenskart controls end to end product through what it calls Full stack manufacturing. The Bhiwadi Rajasthan facility has been operational for a few years and is significant for Lenskart as it has an annual production capacity of 5 crore glasses, making it a key component of the company's operations. By manufacturing locally, Lenskart can control quality, reduce costs, and improve delivery times significantly. This has been crucial in supporting both domestic and international operations. There are some fantastic Youtube videos that showcases the manufacturing and technology prowess of the plant. Lenskart is now planning to expand its manufacturing capabilities further with a new facility in Hyderabad, which is expected to be the world's largest eyewear manufacturing plan
Marketing
We can’t talk about Lenskart without talking about its innovative marketing strategies, keeping up with the times. They first introduced free glasses, where customers paid only for lenses, to encourage trials online. In the early days, they also incentivized customers with offers to sync contact directory, which generated a large lead pool. Don’t think you can do that now. They do a lot of collaborations to make eyewear cool and seasonal. For instance, Blue Billion Collective in 2023 during the world cup or Chinese New Year and Bubble tea collective for its SEA market. Its lean supply chain lets it lauch 2-3 collaborations/collectives a month and test it. Its offline shops are mainly showrooms and hence inventory is centrally managed.
Technology
Given the technology background, Lenskart doesn’t operate like a traditional retailer. For instance, from its early days, the merchandising of every offline store was based on browsing patterns in the area and hence is different in each locality. When a customer enters the store, they request the phone number, which helps determine the conversion likelihood for the customer basis past purchase history and the experience is curated to that customer.  The marketing communication, product manufacturing, pricing strategy, logistics, and many other facets of the business are AI/ML-backed.
We have to discuss AR and Lenskart, which most companies haven’t been able to crack as well as Lenskart. Very early on, the company built a 3D AI technology on the app that allows customers to try on different frames virtually and see which one suits them best. This has provided convenience to customers; they no longer have to visit physical stores if they don't want to. Another unique service provided by Lenskart is mobile vision correction technology. It’s an eye exam that customers can conduct at home. It’s no wonder that the app has 20 million+ downloads.
Financials
Lenskart has made remarkable financial improvements in the last few years. The company significantly reduced its net loss by 84.4%, from ₹63.7 crore in FY23 to ₹10.1 crore in FY24. Revenue from Operations saw a strong 43% year-on-year growth, reaching ₹5,427 crore in FY24 from ₹ 3,788 crore in FY23. Additionally, EBITDA more than doubled, rising 112.5% from ₹403 crore in FY23 to ₹856 crore in FY24.
Lenskart achieved a net profit on a standalone basis of ₹144 crore in FY24, reflecting a 5.1% increase from ₹137 crore in FY23, marking a steady financial improvement.
It has also been focusing on global expansion, which includes acquisitions such as the 2022 acquisition of the Japanese eyewear brand Oneday for $400 million and investments in the French brand Le Petit Lunetier.
Future Plan
The company is on track for $10 bn IPO this year
1)Â Â Â Â Â Southeast Asia Expansion: Lenskart aims to open 300-400 new stores across Southeast Asia, including Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia, over the next two years14.
India Network: Plans to add 400 new stores to its existing network
2)     Manufacturing: The company is investing ₹1,500 crore in a new eyewear manufacturing plant in Telangana, which will be one of the largest globally. This facility will enhance production capacity and support India's export business.
Technology Integration: Continues to leverage AI and automation in manufacturing and customer service, including the acquisition of AI-powered startups like Tango Eye5.
Great links for reference