Eyewear company LensKart has received $100 million investment from private equity firm ChrysCapital for its expansion plans outside India. LensKart currently operates over 2,000 stores. The company has 1,500 plus stores in India and rest are in Southeast Asia and Middle East. The company aims to increase its store count in India and Middle East. Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) also invested $500 million in the company three months ago.

The fast expansion plans of LensKart could come at cost of margins. The company reported INR 1,503 crore sales during year 2022 but reported a net loss of INR 102 crore. The company reported 66 percent increase in sales during the year. For year 2021, the company reported 905 crore sales and 29 crore profit. Talking about last year’s performance, CEO Peyush Bansal said, “While India continues to be profitable, we have invested in Middle East as a new market, and continue to invest more strongly in Southeast Asia. Because these are new markets, (they) require some investment for a while, so considerably, the loss is still not that large."

LensKart has also received investments from KKR & Co, SoftBank, Temasek and PremjiInvest in the past. The company acquired majority stake in Japan’s Owndays, at a valuation of about $400 million in June 2022. With this acquisition, LensKart has the option to expand in 10 countries across Asia. During its last funding round, LensKart raised investment at $4.5 billion valuation.

The company is expected to show strong results and as per reports, it can register profit this year. As funding for startups in India has declined in the recent months, there is an increasing pressure on companies to report profit. Out of 56 unicorns in India, only six have managed to report profit in year 2022.