Lenskart startup story: Founder Peyush Bansal

Lenskart is the best place to buy eyeglasses. This company brought a revolutionary in this broken sector. 

Today’s world is just going through digitalization at a rapid pace. Social media and other gadgets are a boon for people’s connectivity.

But the rise in usage of gadgets is not good. Because it indirectly affects our eyes. Gadgets like mobile, laptops, video games are emitting harmful blue light.

So there is an increasing number of eye problems that rose in this decade. As of now, even children are also using spectacles.

There is also a lack of optometrists in India. There are only about 8000 optometrists. But according to the needs it requires 40,000. Almost 27% of people below 29 requires glasses. 

This eyewear industry is worth $ 10 billion. But there is no great technology and service take away from this sector. 

So after realizing some faults in this industry Peyush Bansal found Lenskart in 2010.

Here is in-depth analysis of the lenskart startups story.

Lenskart startup

Lenskart is India’s best and largest eyewear both in online and offline mode. The company started in November 2010. 

Key founders of Lenskart were Peyush Bansal, Amith Chaudhary and Sumeet Kapahi.

It is serving nearly 1 lakh customers per month. On top of that, it is dominating all its competitors.

Apart from selling eyewear, the company provides eye testing services at homes. This is the first and unique from Lenskart.

Even it has more than 500 offline stores across 110 cities in India. Also providing the best quality of eyewear at affordable prices. So, to experience services, nearly 3000 people visit both online and offline stores in a day.

Lenskart provides a wide range of eyewear starting from 345 to 30,000. Even it has more than 5000 varieties of styles.

The company Lenskart sells sunglasses, contact lenses, computer glasses. Even it has a 3D try-on where recommend eyeglasses based on their face looks.

Lenskart revenue rose to 967 crores in 2020. This company has increased its revenue by 2X from FY2019.

Peyush Bansal is the pillar for the Lenskart startup story.

Lenskart startup story: Peyust Bansal

Peyush Bansal founder of Lenskart. He always went in search of his passion. 

Although his previous venture made good profits he quits it because he felt he is in an inappropriate space. 

Peyush Bansal completes his graduation from MCGILL University in Cannada. Then he was working in Microsoft with a high-paying job. There Peyush Bansal learned a lot with his experience in the company.

In 2007 he left Microsoft to follow his dreams. Peyush had a desire to start a startup and solve existing problems. So he came to India and went on to explore his entrepreneurial journey.

Then he found the problem existing in the student’s accommodation sectors. Although there were good colleges everywhere students found it tedious to find a room.

So to tackle this problem Peyush Bansal found VALYOO Technologies. From this company, he builds a website called searchmycampus.com.

This website provides affordable and high qualities accommodation for the students. Subsequently, there is a great demand for its website. A lot of students approaches to this website to solve their problem.

So, Peyush Bansal thought to expand its services. In order to help students. While the website is limited to accommodation but it expands its services. Now the website provides offers internships, part-time jobs, and carpool facilities.

Eventually, the business grows and benefits a lot of students. The company also made profits from its database. 

Besides, it was selling students’ databases to various colleges. So that colleges can target the right audiences.

Now Peyush Bansal was not happy with the business. Because he did his passion lies elsewhere. Then he went on to dig into various problems. 

Also read: success story of Jack Ma

Foundation: Lenskart startup story

Then Peyush Bansal found eyewear industry problems. So to tackle the problem he found Flyrr.com in the USA. 

The company Flyrr took all the orders and distributed them to retailers and distributors. The company made good revenue out of its services. Because there were in the domination position.

The orders are increasing day by day. But the problem was shipments. Because it did had a good connection with the US delivery services.

 Even it took 20 days to deliver the orders. As a result, customers were not happy with the services.

 So, Peyush Bansal is also not a blissful entrepreneur because of its poor delivery system. Hence, this reason ultimately made him build Lenskart startup story.

Start of Lenskart startup

Peyush Bansal was finding an opportunity in India. He decided to start an online eyewear business. Because he found a lot of loopholes in this sector.

Even he also recognized that Amazon and eBay had a presence in this sector. Besides he had the benefit of being the first mover.

Eventually, in 2010 Peyus Bansal found Lenskart. Initially, the company had a presence online. The site offers to sell only contact lenses in the early stages.

So in 2011 Lenskart starts to sell sunglasses, eyeglasses, reading and computer glasses. The company got a lot of prominence from its users.

In 2011 he got fundings of $4 million from Chiratae Ventures. Further, the company also started to open its offlines stores across Indian cities.

Since then Lenskart growing at a rapid pace. From one offline store to 500+ stores across Indian cities. Presently there are over 4000 employees. 

Besides Lenskart became a unicorn in 2019 with $ 1.5 billion valuations. After raising 275 million from the Soft Bank Vision Fund.

Lenskart startup: Latest fundings

In, July 2021 India’s largest contact wear and eyeglasses company, Lenskart raised $220 million. The major investors who led the fundings round were Temasek and Falcon Edge Capital.

The fundings are coming seamlessly into the eyewear brand 

Lenskart. Recently, a month ago, the company had raised $95 million from global investment fund KKR.

After the fundings, Lenskart’s valuation rose to $2.5 billion. These funds will be utilized in expansion and bring new technologies.

The company has 750 retail stores all across Indian cities. Lenskart had sold 8 million eyewear in 2020. Moreover, the eyewear industry market ramp up to $15 billion by 2025.

Lenskart profit in 2021

Lenskart India’s largest eyewear portal had a good year in spite of the pandemic. Lenskart revenue shoots up to 905 Cr in the financial year 2021. There was no loss registered in the company.

Even though there was no significant jump in the profit percentage over the years. But in 2020, Lenskart bags revenue of 900 Cr. So overall there was roughly 1% of the profit made by the Lenskart startup.

Online purchases and retail product sales of Lenkskart made over 856 cr in the year 2021. Comparatively, in 2021, Lenskart startup made 851.2 cr 2020.

Everyone had great benefits from “Lenskart gold membership”. Every user got a great discount on the products. So, Lenskart also had revenue of count over 41 cr in 2021. There was a 4% increase from the previous year 2020 of 37 cr.

Now, in 2021, Lenskart have 700 franchise stores and also have a presence in the online marketplace. So, there will be a certain commission given to the franchisees. Also, have to bare fees to the online marketplace. 

Lenskart burnt over 216 cr in the year 2021 for the above operations.

other expenses were

• Advertisement: 136 Cr
• Employee Benefits: 176Cr
• Travel Cost: 22 Cr

Peyush Bansal vision

Lenskart founder Peyush Bansal is having a great vision for developing the business. He aspires to make Lenskart a global company and the most famous eyewear brand. Also kept aim of producing 300-400 million spectacles a year. They want to still disrupt the traditional eyewear market and serve 50% of India.

To make this machine possible, LensKart startup setting up the largest eyewear plant in Bhiwadi, Rajasthan. At present, Lenskart founder Peyush Bansal claimed that the plant is capable of producing 50 million eyewear a year.

Peyush Bansal wants to set a monopoly in the eyewear industry in India. At present there many eyewear brands such as Titan, Specs Makers, and other local players. So, Lenskart founders want to build supremacy over them and be a monopoly like Asian paints, Jio and IndiGo.

Lenkart Services

Lenskart provides various free and essential services to its customers. 

Because of its high-quality products with affordable prices the company userbase increases day-by-day.

Here are some of the essential Lenskart services

1. Try on 3D: Lenskart leverages its technology to increase its number of users. The company comes with new innovations every year. . Through its 3D tech users get glasses recommendations according to the face dynamics. Users have just placed their face on this try-on 3D section via camera or webcam.Try it now
2. Home services: Lenskar provides free eye tests at customers’ doorstep. This move facilitates people from getting out of their homes during the pandemic.
3. Lens maker: The lens ordered on Lenskart will be precise and accurate up to 0.3 decimals. Because it uses robotic techniques imported from Germany.
4. Affordable Lenskart lens price: The company provides high-end products at cheap prices. Because it has its own manufacturing unit. So there are no extra fee charges imposed on distributors or retailers.

 In this way, Lenskart bought a great impact on the eyewear industry. Peyush Bansal is a great inspiration to all entrepreneurs in the modern-day world.

So, Lenskart startup story describes the eagerness of Peyush Bansal to build new business. For aspiring entrepreneurs, Lenskart startup story is the best example for.