The eyewear retailer's public debut drew heavyweight institutional investors even as the company's path to profitability remains relatively recent
NEW DELHI — Within hours of opening its order books to the public, Lenskart Solutions crossed a milestone that some pre-IPO companies spend weeks chasing: full subscription. By the closing bell on October 31, the Indian eyewear retailer's ₹7,278 crore ($8 billion) offering had attracted enough demand to cover all available shares, with institutional investors showing particularly keen appetite.
It was, by most measures, a strong start—though perhaps not entirely surprising given what had transpired the day before.
On October 30, Lenskart locked in ₹3,268 crore from 147 anchor investors who collectively snapped up shares at ₹402 apiece, the top end of the company's ₹382-402 pricing range. The roster read like a who's-who of global capital: BlackRock, Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Nomura. Even SoftBank, which is using this IPO to pare down its stake, participated as an anchor investor before turning around as a seller—a curious bit of financial choreography that speaks to the Japanese conglomerate's complicated relationship with its portfolio companies.
Following the money
Qualified institutional buyers drove much of the early momentum, oversubscribing their allocated portion 1.42 times by day's end, according to exchange data reviewed by the Bombay Stock Exchange. Retail investors weren't far behind at 1.31 times their reserved allotment. Non-institutional bidders lagged considerably, filling just 41% of their quota—a gap that often reflects hesitation among smaller institutional players or high-net-worth individuals still sizing up the deal.
Overall, the IPO received bids for roughly 11.23 crore shares against 9.98 crore on offer, pushing the subscription level to 1.13 times. Not a landslide, exactly, but solid enough for an opening act.
Domestic mutual funds claimed about 35% of the anchor book, deploying capital through 59 different schemes. New World Fund led the pack with a 3.82% allocation, followed by T. Rowe Price International Discovery Fund at 3.11% and SBI Focused Fund at 3.06%. Singapore's Government Investment Corporation took a 2.97% slice, while Goldman Sachs India Equity Portfolio secured approximately 2.6%.
The anchor list stretched across continents—Norway's Government Pension Fund Global made an appearance, as did HDFC, ICICI Prudential, Kotak, and Axis on the domestic front. It's the kind of investor syndicate that lends credibility, if not necessarily guarantees of post-listing performance.
The exit choreography begins
This IPO is as much about exits as it is about expansion. Of the total offering, ₹5,128 crore comes from an offer for sale by existing shareholders. SoftBank's SVF II Lightbulb is offloading the lion's share, joined by KKR's MacRitchie Investments, ChrysCapital's PI Opportunities Fund-II, Kedaara Capital Fund II, Alpha Wave Ventures, and Schroders Capital. Even the founding quartet—Peyush Bansal, Neha Bansal, Amit Chaudhary, and Sumeet Kapahi—are trimming their positions.
The remaining ₹2,150 crore represents fresh equity, earmarked for what Lenskart describes as aggressive expansion. The breakdown is specific, perhaps reassuringly so: ₹272.62 crore for opening company-owned stores, ₹591.44 crore for lease payments on new retail space, ₹213.38 crore for technology infrastructure and cloud systems, and ₹320.06 crore for brand marketing. The rest will fund acquisitions and general corporate needs, according to the red herring prospectus filed with regulators.
Translation: Lenskart intends to keep building.
A business finally hitting its stride?
At the upper end of its pricing band, Lenskart carries a market valuation hovering around ₹69,500 crore—a substantial premium for a company that only recently turned consistently profitable. Fiscal 2025 delivered ₹7,009 crore in revenue and ₹297 crore in profit, numbers that reflect both scale and the thin margins typical of retail operations.
The company now operates 2,806 stores globally: 2,137 scattered across India, and another 669 planted in Southeast Asia, Japan, and the Middle East. It's a footprint built methodically over the past decade, combining prescription eyewear with contact lenses and, increasingly, fashion-forward frames targeting younger consumers.
Lenskart's valuation has climbed steadily in private markets. Abu Dhabi Investment Authority poured in $500 million in March 2023, pricing the company at $4.5 billion. Temasek and Fidelity followed with $200 million in June 2024 at roughly $5 billion. By April 30, 2025, Fidelity had marked its stake to $6.1 billion—suggesting continued confidence, or at least a reluctance to write down the investment ahead of an IPO.
Whether public market investors will validate that trajectory remains the open question. The bidding window stays open through November 4, with share allotment expected November 6 and trading debut on the BSE and NSE scheduled for November 10.
What happens next
Six investment banks are steering this deal: Kotak Mahindra Capital, Morgan Stanley India, Avendus Capital, Citigroup Global Markets India, Axis Capital, and Intensive Fiscal Services. MUFG Intime India is handling registrar duties—the unglamorous but essential back-office work of tracking who gets which shares.
For now, Lenskart has cleared the first hurdle. Day one momentum is encouraging, though the real test arrives when retail mania either materializes or doesn't in the coming days, and ultimately when shares start changing hands in the secondary market.
SoftBank, for its part, is watching closely. The firm's Vision Fund II has a mixed record in India, with some bets paying off handsomely and others fizzling. Lenskart sits somewhere in between—a company that survived the pandemic, found profitability, and now faces the harsh light of quarterly earnings calls and analyst scrutiny.
The eyewear business, it turns out, requires more than just good vision.
