Indian eyewear retail chain Lenskart has reportedly completed the acquisition of Japanese eyewear brand OWNDAYS to become Asia’s largest omnichannel retailer. This stake acquisition takes Lenskart’s business to 13 Asian markets including Singapore, India, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, and Malaysia.
The deal is supposedly worth USD 400 million but the company has not revealed the details of the deal. OWNDAYS’ current investors, Mitsui & Co, L Catterton Asia, and Principal Investments will exit from their positions.
Lenskart has stated that OWNDAYS Co-Founders COO Take Umiyama, and CEO Shuji Tanaka will remain stakeholders and spearhead the management team while the brand operates independently.
Lenskart Group CEO and Co-Founder Peyush Bansal has commented that the OWNDAYS acquisition moves the organization closer toward the liberation of eyewear.
In May, Lenskart’s roll-up subsidiary Neso Brands secured USD 100 million from Softbank, KKR, Temasek, and Alpha Wave Global. The omnichannel retailer has been one of the early Direct-to-consumer unicorns and is currently valued at USD 4.3 billion.
Currently, Lenskart employs 300 people in its engineering team and intends to upscale it to 500 by FY23. The company will continue its expansion in South East Asia and India to serve the mid-premium to mass segments as the Japanese company swiftly scales to cater to premium segments.
The company has also been making investments in extensive supply chain automation and integration. This will now be leveraged by both companies to improve unit economics and customer proposition.
Commenting on this partnership, Shuji Tanaka expressed that Lenskart has extensive intellectual capital and expertise in the field of information technology.
Tanaka added that the Lenskart-OWNDAYS combination will bring innovation thereby revolutionizing the eyewear sector to benefit people worldwide.
Meanwhile, Lenskart aims to go public over the next three years as there is a significant demand for affordable, high-quality eyewear, and the company foresees profitability.
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