New Delhi: Omnichannel eyewear unicorn Lenskart on Thursday announced that it has taken a majority stake in Japanese eyewear brand OnDaze in a deal worth around $400 million. This will help the merged firm to reach 13 markets in Asia including India, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Japan. OnDaze’s co-founder, CEO Shuji Tanaka and COO Tech Umiyama, will remain shareholders and lead the management team that will continue to operate as a separate brand.
Existing major shareholders L Catterton, Mitsui and Principal Investments will exit Lenskart from their position. (Also Read: Rupee Better Against Dollar Other Global Currencies: FM)
Piyush Bansal, Co-Founder, Piyush Bansal said, “I see that Lenskart and OnDays share the same values of enriching the lives of customers, caring for the people in our communities as well as continuous learning, and We also have very complementary skill sets.” and Group CEO at Lenskart. (Also read: MSMEs make up a third of India’s economy, budget grew by 650 per cent in 8 years: PM)
Lenskart along with its 300-person engineering team, which is projected to reach 500 in FY13, will help build a robust online and omni experience for Ondays.
The company said it will continue its rapid expansion in India and Southeast Asia to serve the medium to premium segment, while OnDay is growing rapidly to cater to the premium segment.
“Ever since we opened our first overseas store in Singapore in 2013, it has been recognized as the eyewear brand of choice in many countries in Asia,” Tanaka said.
Founded in 2010, Lenskart ships over 10 million pairs of eyewear each year and has over 20 million app downloads, 300 in-house eye test representatives as well as over 1,100 stores in India, Singapore and Dubai.
Lenskart is backed by Falcon Edge Capital, SoftBank, KKR, Temasek, Premji Invest and Kedara Capital, among others.
OnDaze has about 460 stores in 13 markets in this area.