Lenskart, an online eyewear store based in India, has raised $220 million from Temasek Holdings Ptey and Falcon Edge Capital, indicating a growing interest in the country's technological firms.

Peyush Bansal founded the company in 2010, and it offers eyeglasses, contact lenses, and sunglasses online and through around 750 retail locations across India. It expects to use the funds, as well as $95 million raised earlier this year from KKR & Co., to boost online sales and open physical locations in India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.

According to the founder, the firm is now valued at $2.5 billion.

Lenskart Solutions Pvt, as the company is formally named, was created in Faridabad, a dusty industrial area south of New Delhi, with early support from Japan's SoftBank Group Corp.

According to the founder, the firm is now valued at $2.5 billion.

Last year, Lenskart sold over eight million pairs of eyewear, with a goal of increasing this by 30 percent in the fiscal year ending March 2022. The company claims to be India's largest eyeglasses retailer and aspires to be a leader in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East. By 2025, the combined market opportunity is expected to approach $15 billion, according to the company.

Bansal began his entrepreneurial career with a company that attempted to solve college students' housing concerns. They soon recognized, however, that they could have a greater impact on eyeglass sales.

“India is the world's blind capital, with roughly half of the country's 1.3 billion inhabitants needing glasses,” he said.

Despite the ups and downs during the COVID-19 lockdown, he asserts Lenskart is now profitable.

“We were profitable at the company level before to the pandemic, were in the red during the first and second waves, and have now returned to the green", he said.

Bansal stated, "The technology delivers significant benefits to the entire eyeglass sector”.

Apart from eyewear, every category has been disrupted globally, from fashion to footwear. It could take two decades to tackle the problem of eyeglasses awareness, penetration, and cost", Bansal added.

“The startup intends to invest in its own supply chain as well as cutting-edge technology. The world's largest facility for the company's ready-made prescription glasses, which produces 150,000 pairs each day, is believed to be in Rajasthan, western India. The Lenskart Vision Fund was recently established by the firm to invest $2 million in select companies in the eyewear, eye-care, and associated retail industries. A virtual 3D tool for trying on glasses, as well as artificial intelligence face-mapping to assist with frame selections, are among the company's digital capabilities”, he added.

Bansal earned his bachelor's degree from McGill University in Montreal and went on to work for Microsoft Corporation in the United States before returning to India about a decade ago to start his own business.

India's technology sector is having a spectacular year. Hundreds of billions of dollars are being invested in the country's startups, resulting in the creation of more unicorns than ever before.

Those investments are beginning to bear fruit. Zomato Ltd., a food-delivery service, became the country's first unicorn to go public, raising $1.3 billion. Paytm, a digital payments company, has filed a draught prospectus for what may be India's largest IPO ever.