Mumbai, November 17, 2025: Lenskart today announced the launch of Meller in India and revealed a new creative eyewear partnership with global pop-culture brand Popmart, strengthening its ambition to build a modern House of Eyewear Brands and positioning Lenskart as a centre for contemporary eyewear design.

The Pop Mart x Lenskart eyewear collection will launch in Singapore—online and in select Lenskart stores—from the first week of December. The range introduces collectable, character-inspired designs aimed at consumers who enjoy expressive, playful, and culturally resonant fashion accessories.

The partnership builds on Lenskart’s expanding set of cultural collaborations, including Harry Potter, Hello Kitty, Pokémon, Dragon Ball Z, Superman, and Batman. These collaborations are helping Lenskart broaden the appeal of its eyewear through design-led storytelling that connects deeply with fans and emerging subcultures.

Meller, founded in Barcelona, has grown into one of Europe’s most influential D2C youth eyewear brands, distinguished by its bold silhouettes, street-culture-inspired palettes, and expressive, fashion-forward aesthetic. With over 700k followers and strong traction across Europe and the U.S., Meller has built a vibrant global community and a deep connection with young consumers seeking distinctive, design-led eyewear.

In India, Meller will now be available across Lenskart’s retail network as well as online via the Lenskart app and website. The brand will roll out first to ~500 curated stores identified using GeoIQ intelligence to match high fashion-affinity catchments.

Through brands like Meller, John Jacobs, Owndays, and creative partnerships such as Popmart, Dragon Ball Z and Harry Potter, Lenskart is gradually building a thoughtful premium portfolio shaped around what the new generation of customers wants. The eyewear industry has shown how strong platforms can help brands rise, and Lenskart hopes to play its part in enabling the next wave of expressive, design-led brands. Each brand represents a distinct design philosophy and consumer segment, enabling Lenskart to cater to a broader spectrum of global customers seeking individuality, premium quality, and style. On the lens technology side, global innovators Tokai and Rodenstock have also partnered with Lenskart.

“Our customers inspire every decision we make. They’re seeking global design, individuality, and brands that feel authentic,” said Peyush Bansal, Co-founder & CEO, Lenskart. “Meller’s bold aesthetic and strong community make it a wonderful addition to our House of Brands. And through creative partnerships like Pop Mart, we hope to bring moments of play, imagination and collectability into eyewear in ways that delight our customers.”

He added, “By bringing together brands like John Jacobs, Owndays and now Meller, alongside collaborations such as Pop Mart, our goal is to offer customers more choice and better experiences. We see ourselves as an enabler for the next generation of eyewear brands — providing the platform and capabilities for them to reach more people and unlock their potential.”

Powered by Lenskart’s distribution scale, full-stack supply chain, design ecosystem, and advanced technology capabilities, partner brands can reach new audiences and grow more meaningfully across markets.

As global eyewear evolves, strong multi-brand platforms have played a pivotal role in shaping the category. With its House of Brands vision, Lenskart aims to empower the next wave of expressive, design-led eyewear brands and cultural collaborations worldwide.

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The offer comprises a fresh issue of equity shares aggregating up to ₹21,500 million (the “fresh issue”) and an offer for sale of up to 132,288,941 equity shares by certain existing shareholders, including Peyush Bansal, Neha Bansal, Amit Chaudhary and Sumeet Kapahi, Promoter Selling Shareholders and SVF II Lightbulb (Cayman) Limited, Schroders Capital Private Equity Asia Mauritius Limited, PI Opportunities Fund – II, Macritchie Investments Pte. Ltd., Kedaara Capital Fund II LLP, and Alpha Wave Ventures LP, Investor Selling Shareholders.

It may consider a pre-ipo placement aggregating to Rs 430 crs prior to filing of the RHP. If undertaken, it will be reduced from the fresh issue size.

The company proposes to utilise the net proceeds from the IPO for various strategic initiatives, including capital expenditure for setting up new Company-operated Company-owned (CoCo) stores in India; payments related to lease, rent, and license agreements for these CoCo stores; investments in technology and cloud infrastructure; brand marketing and business promotion to enhance brand awareness; potential unidentified inorganic acquisitions; and general corporate purposes.

Founded in 2008, Lenskart commenced operations in India as an online business in 2010 and opened its first retail store in New Delhi in 2013. It believes that clear vision is fundamental to the personal development and well-being of an individual and their aim is to build a tech enabled supply and distribution that improves access to affordability and quality “Eyewear for All”.

Today, the brands business spans across designing, manufacturing, branding and retailing and it operates the largest eyewear retail networks in India with a strong presence across metro, Tier 1 and Tier 2+ cities, as well as international operations in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

It owns and operates frame and lens design and prescription eyeglasses manufacturing facilities at two locations in India in Bhiwadi, Rajasthan and Gurugram, Haryana, supplemented by regional facilities in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

The brand targets different customer categories through a portfolio of brands and sub-brands that include premium collections through John Jacobs and Owndays (acquired in 2022), and economy and affordable premium collections through Lenskart Air, Vincent Chase, hustlr, and Hooper Kids.

The company recently agreed to purchase the remaining 80% stake in Stellio Ventures S.L., which owns the “Meller” consumer eyewear brand, for ₹4,063.93 million. Its products are primarily sold online through its website to customers across multiple countries. Additionally, Stellio operates a retail store in Barcelona, Spain.

In FY 25, across its brands, it launched 105 new in-house designed and engineered collections globally, including in collaboration with popular brands and celebrities. Additionally, it sold 27.2 million eyewear units across 12.41 million customer accounts in India and Overseas.

Interesting to note that customers contributing almost 45% of the revenues to the company in India engaged with the brand digitally through organic searches, social media or other online mediums 90 days before completing their purchase.

From its own facial analysis and frame recommendation tool to its AI enabled Computer Vision platform which analysis CCTV footage from its retail locations to optimise customer flow at stores and increase conversion rates and Geo-analytics to predict revenue potential and payback period, customised technology solutions have been used from engagement to supply chain, post order fulfilment, retail store operations – the brands 500+ tech team has been responsible to build, maintain and enhance its core technology infrastructure, including its websites, mobile applications, warehouse management system and AI-driven tools supporting its operations and customer experience.

During FY25, the brand conducted 38.59 million virtual try-ons and 37.87 million face/frame size measurements for our customers in India through our mobile applications.

While India continues to be its largest market in Asia it is amongst the two largest organised retailers of prescription eyeglasses in terms of the B2C eyeglasses sales volumes in FY25. It offers an extensive portfolio of eyewear products including prescription eyeglasses, computer glasses, zero-power glasses, and sunglasses, with customisation enabled across lenses and frames.

It recorded over 100 million cumulative app downloads and garnered more than 104.97 million annual visitors on its websites globally in FY25. The brand currently operates across 2,723 stores (comprising 2,067 stores in India and 656 stores internationally).

As per the DRHP, across India, Japan, Southeast Asia and Middle East where the company is present there are an estimated 1.3 billion individuals who are affected by refractive errors as of Financial Year 2025, representing 32% of global population. If one has to look at only India, the number of individuals affected by refractive errors in India has increased from approximately 43% (approximately 590 million) in the Financial Year 2020 to an estimated 53% (approximately 777 million) in the Financial Year 2025 and is projected to increase to approximately 62% (approximately 943 million) by the Financial Year 2030

Its proprietary platform, including mobile apps and website, supports seamless ordering, virtual try-ons and digital consultations. Lenskart’s customer journey is further supported by its in-house optometrists and cutting-edge optical labs, enabling precision-driven fulfilment and quicker turnaround.

Kotak Mahindra Capital Company Ltd, Morgan Stanley India Company Pvt Ltd, Avendus Capital Pvt Ltd, Citigroup Global Markets India Pvt Ltd, Axis Capital Ltd, Intensive Fiscal Services Pvt Ltd are the Book Running Lead Managers to the Issue.

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SoftBank has invested $231 million in Lenskart through a primary infusion along with making a secondary transaction worth $40-$45 million, which includes buying out part-stakes from three of Lenskart’s existing backers — TPG Group, PremjiInvest and International Finance Corp.

The investment will be its first in India from Vision Fund-II, and the second globally. It is also SVF’s maiden investment in India this year and comes after SoftBank’s once prized portfolio firm WeWork shelved its IPO plan a few months ago, dealing a blow to the Masayoshi Son-led group’s investment thesis.

Lenskart passed a board resolution on December 12 approving the allotment of 22.9 million Series G compulsorily convertible cumulative preference shares to SVF II (Cayman) Lightbulb Ltd, according to a research note published by paper.vc. SoftBank shelled out Rs 714 per share.

The latest capital raising comes about three months after Kedaara Capital, one of India’s largest home-grown private equity firms, invested a shade over $55 million in the company. The PE firm is also in talks to buy shares in the omni-channel eyewear retailer through a secondary deal.

Lenskart has cumulatively raised about $380 million in primary equity financing till date. Separately, its investors have earned over $250 million in secondary transactions, across rounds.

The company plans to use the latest capital to ramp up its manufacturing, supply chain and fulfilment capacities, and utilise the rest to further build technology functions and double its team.

“We have realised that to service the growing demand, and to do that at scale, we need to invest more in manufacturing. If we want to realise our vision of having a 50% market share in India, it will require more backend work in building capability and infrastructure to supply,” Lenskart CEO Peyush Bansal told ET.

Lenskart plans to open a second plant to undertake multi-tiered manufacturing processes, Bansal said. It will also focus on creating smaller, automated and more mobile eye-testing and vision correction equipment, and on artificial intelligence-led technologies.

“Vision correction is a huge problem in India, and about 350 million children don’t have access to quality optometrists. Vision is the biggest health ailment in India, according to the World Economic Forum, and that’s what we are trying to address,” Bansal said.

Vision Fund-II, which is raising money from Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp, Foxconn Technology Group and the sovereign wealth fund of Kazakhstan, made its first close of $2 billion, Bloomberg reported last month. It also participated in a financing round for Chinese online property listing service Beike Zhaofang, it reported.

SVF’s first fund was almost $100 billion in size, but with concerns around the group’s strategy of backing loss-making startups, it may not mop up a similar gargantuan corpus this time round.

The investment in Lenskart was led by Sumer Juneja, partner and head of India at SoftBank Investment Advisors, who joined the world’s largest technology investor in November last year. Avendus Capital acted as advisor for the deal.

It is also the second bet by SoftBank on a vertical ecommerce business with a sizeable offline presence. The world’s largest tech investor had last year invested $150 million into baby products retailer FirstCry, which also runs brick-and-mortar stores.

Lenskart, founded in 2010, has been steadily improving its financials over the last three years, while also expanding in its core home market as well as overseas. It has also entered into a slew of new categories, such as contact lenses.

On a standalone basis, the company reported net loss of Rs 27.89 crore in fiscal year 2018-19, compared to a net loss of about Rs 118 crore in fiscal year 2017-18, documents filed with the Registrar of Companies, and accessed by business intelligence platform Tofler, showed.

Total revenue touched Rs 486.26 crore, as the company expanded across the country and established its footprint in Singapore, its first overseas market.

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