Delhi-based eyewear startup Lenskart, which entered the unicorn club last year has acquihired Hyderabad-based delivery startup DailyJoy with an aim to boost its technology stack and its engineering capability.
DailyJoy is a grocery and essentials delivery startup that has operations in Tier 1/2 cities including Lucknow and Hyderabad. However, the acquisition by Lenskart is only centred around augmenting the company’s team strength and leveraging the tech expertise.
The eyewear startup is also looking to hire more than 100 engineers, especially for its Hyderabad hub which will house engineers in various teams across product, design and development, quality engineering, front end developers, java developers, Android and IOS developers, data science engineers.
Commenting on the announcement, Lenskart cofounder Ramneek Khurana said that the startup plans to double the strength of its current 150-member technology team with new hires in engineering, product, and data science functions in the next six months.
“We want to make Hyderabad a base for quality and consistent engineering to support the high-growth phase of the company. The team expects to station mature technology leaders & young local talent with 10x thinking that can spearhead this growth with focus, energy, and innovation,” Khurana added.
The acquisition also comes at a time when Lenskart has been expanding its production and manufacturing capacity in India. In August last year, the startup pledged to invest $50 Mn (nearly INR 380 Cr) in setting up its second manufacturing plant in India. Lenskart also sources its material from a plant in China and a factory in Gurugram.
As Lenskart gears up for its upcoming project of expanding its store and online footprint significantly, it is also testing out multiple geographies with an aim to create products in augmented reality technology and recommendations by the end of this year. Lenskart has a growing retail and e-commerce presence going deep into existing market in India and Singapore, while opening up new locations in middle-east and the USA
Currently, Lenskart has 600 stores, of which 550 are operations even during the pandemic. The SoftBank-backed company has rolled out features like appointment-based shopping and aggressive sanitisation processes to drive in more customers.
Founded in 2010 by Bansal, Amit Chaudhary and Sumeet Kapahi, Lenskart is an eyewear brand that deals in eyeglasses, powered sunglasses, and contact lenses. The company manufactures, assembles, distributes, and supplies its products across 500 stores across India.
The company entered the unicorn club in 2020, after raising INR 1,645 Cr ($231 Mn) from SoftBank Vision Fund II, Lightbulb Ltd as part of its Series G funding round last year. It has also raised funds from IDG Ventures ($4 Mn in October 2011); Ronnie Screwvala-led Unilazer Ventures ($10 Mn in February 2013) and TPG Growth & TR Capital ($22 Mn in January 2015).
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