The subsidiary of omnichannel eyewear retailer Lenskart Neso Brands a (D2C ) has raised ($100 million) in a seed fundings round in what is the largest seeds fundraise in the startups ecosystem in history. The injection of fresh funds into Lenskart subsidiary Neso Brands was handled by (kkr) Softbank, Alpha Wave Global and Temasek.
Lenskart Neso Brands a D2C startup has raised $100 million
The announcement comes on the heels of Lenskart raising Rs 760 crore (or nearly $100 million) in a new funding round from Alpha Wave Ventures last months. Filings indicated that this was a Series I round with the issuance of 36,41,646 series share at Rs 2087.52 per shares to raise Rs 760 crores.
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D2C startup 10club, an e-commerce brand aggregation company, had previously reported raising the largest seed funding round of $40 million in June last year.
Lenskart CEO Peyush Bansal had previously stated that he would bet heavily on internationals expansion as well as vertical brands acquisitions ahead of a possible initial public offering.
Neso Brands is headquartered in Singapore and will partner with and invest in consumer eyewear brands around the world and grow these brands by leveraging synergies across the Lenskart Group to accelerate international expansion.
Neso Brands has also announced the appointment of Bjorn Bergstrom as founding CEO. Bergstrom has extensive experience in consumer expansions, venture capital, and management consulting.
Bergstorm previously served as chief growth officer and interim chief product and technology officer for global fashion brand na-kd. Bergstrom experience prior to that includes working as a venture capital investor focusing on early-stage growth startups, management consulting, and operating roles in consumer companies.
Today there is a perfect storm in the eyewear industry thats make it ripes for disruption. Consumers have ever higher demands when it comes to customer experience brand and choice, but the established players have not been able to keep up. By investing in the industry most promising new brands and leveraging centralized resources in technology, manufacturing and distribution, Neso Brands will be uniquely positioned to scale the eyewear brands of the future. I am very much looking forward to leading the company on this journey and working closely with our investors and partners Bergstorm said in a statement.
To date, eyewear has been a very traditional industry with big headlines, but it is now ripe for a technology-enabled global transformation. With mainstream e-commerce adoption skyrocketing and technologies like ar and AI becoming more mature, the time has come for agile eyewear brands to capitalize on these trends and capture market share. Neso Brands will house these brands and enable a faster global launch by giving them access to shared resources, including technology, supply chain, distribution, capital and best practices, according to a company brochure.
With this investment in Neso Brands, we want to accelerate our mission to transform the way people see and experience the world. Consumers want more and better every day and while the quality of people’s lives has been improved through all other lifestyle products, such as shoes, clothing and wearables, vision products are the same as always without innovation, only more expensive. We firmly believe that the eyewear brands of today will not be the brands of the future. And Neso is our initiative to partner with founders globally to help create the eyewear brands of the future, said Lenskart CEO Peyush Bansal.
