Lenskart acquires majority stake in Japanese eyewear brand Owndays

01/07/2022

Mumbai, jun 30: Lenskart, the SoftBank-backed eyewear retailer, is buying a majority stake in Japan's Owndays Inc, the direct-to-consumer eyewear brand. The deal will create one of Asia's biggest online retailers of eyewear.
With this acquisition, Lenskart extends its reach to 13 markets, including India, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Japan. Owndays co-founders, CEO Shuji Tanaka, and chief operating officer, Take Umiyama, will continue to be shareholders and lead the management team of Owndays Inc., which will continue to operate as a separate brand. The current major shareholders of Owndays L Catterton Asia and Mitsui & Co., Principal Investments will exit their positions to Lenskart. The deal is estimated to be around $400 million, said sources in the know. Peyush Bansal, Co-Founder and Group CEO at Lenskart, said, "In today's age, the customer wants great products, great prices, and delightful experiences all the time. With Owndays we move a step closer to democratising eyewear. I have known Shuji-san and Take-san for over five years and have been an admirer of the disruptive brand and customer experience they have built. There is much we can achieve together which will be greater than the sum of its parts." Lenskart has 300 people in its engineering team and is estimated to scale it up to 500 people in FY23. It will help build a stronger online and Omni experience for Owndays, said the company in a media release. Lenskart has also been investing in strengthening supply chain integration and automation, which will now be leveraged by both the brands to further enhance customer proposition and unit economics. Lenskart will continue its rapid expansion in India and Southeast Asia to serve the mass to mid-premium segments while Owndays scales to cater to premium segments. Owndays Founder and CEO Shuji Tanaka commented, "I believe digital transformation is the key to our next phase of growth in the post-pandemic operating environment, and I am excited to partner with Lenskart, which has deep expertise and intellectual capital in the information technology field.
We envision that the combination of Owndays and Lenskart will bring about an abundance of innovation that will further revolutionise the eyewear industry to the benefit of people across the world."
Owndays' growth accelerated following L Catterton Asia's and Mitsui & Co., Principal Investments' participation in 2018. It leveraged its strong commercial network in Japan and across the region to expand its operations to cover 13 markets.
The companies also said that consumers globally are increasingly buying prescription glasses more frequently than they do with lifestyle choices.
Lenskart has raised total funding of about $968 million from investors such as TPG, Temasek and KKR. It competes with players such as Warby Parker, Specsmakers, Titan Eyeplus, and GKB.

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