The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority or ADIA is reportedly buying stakes in India's Lenskart. According to a report in Bloomberg, the authority is planning to buy new and old shares worth 500 million dollars. The company is currently valued over 4 billion dollars. This deal will further increase the company's valuation. Lenskart, founded by Peyush Bansal, Amit Chaudhary and Sumeet Kapahi, has many institutional investors, including KKR and company, Softbank Group, Temasek Holdings and Premjiinvest. According to the report, Peyush Bansal is also planning to bring an IPO within 48 months. Who is Amit Choudhary, Lenskart co-founder who is a fan of Ratan Tata?
Peyush Goyal has become a celebrity after he appeared on the popular show Shark Tank India. However, not much is known about Amit Choudhary, the Chief Operating Officer of the company. Lenskart had a total funding of over 1.06 billion dollars in 19 rounds. The latest funding round was on November 4, 2022. The company raised 51 million dollars. The company had started with a loss. In 2021, the company's revenue was $120.64 million.
Peyush Bansal did his schooling in Delhi's Don Bosco High School and graduated in engineering from McGill University. He graduated from IIM Bangalore. He became the CEO of Lenskart in 2010. His net worth is around Rs 650 crore.
Who is Amit Chaudhary? He is the COO of the company. He is known to possess a deep understanding in the field of analytics. He has led from the front in driving the company towards growth. He is also credited with bringing in growth to the business. He was also instrumental in growing Lenskart's chain of offline stores.
He was born in Kolkata. He studied in Kolkata's Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan. He did his engineering from BIT Mesra. He is a BE in Information Technology. He did his college between 2005 and 2009.
He calls Ratan Tata his mentor. He was mentored by the iconic industrialist. He met Ratan Tata in 2019 after which he wrote an emotional Linkedin post.
"I was telling the legend Ratan Tata how big an inspiration he is to me. One of the best days of my life, when I met my idol".
"I read a book on business maharajas in the first year of my college. One of the chapters there was on Ratan Tata. That changed my life; even my thinking was different post reading that chapter," he added.
According to reports, Ratan Tata was an investor in Lenskart. He had invested Rs 10 lakh in 2016. He had also invested in Ola, Ola Electric, Cure.fit, FirstCry, Urban Company etc.
Tata's investment was not to make money out of the deal but as an advisor. And since then, the company has grown into a behemoth. This shows the value of Ratan Tata's guidance. This also shows his magnanimity.
"A simple gadget like eyeglasses helps Do more , Be more to humans - we at lenskart are enabling this," his LinkedIn bio reads.
He has invested in three more companies -- Smiles.ai, WickedGud and Cora Health.
