Lenskart, India’s omnichannel D2C eyewear brand, has announced its plans to invest up to $2 million in each of the selected start-ups that are synergistic to the eyewear, eye-care and omnichannel retail sectors. In addition to the infusion of capital, select start-ups will benefit from Lenskart’s phenomenal market access via 700+ retail stores and online channels across India, Singapore, Middle East, and the US.

The access to Lenskart’s state-of-the-art vertically integrated supply chain, word-class technology stack for facilitating omnichannel retail, tech expertise in building futuristic technologies for eyewear will provide select start-ups the right ecosystem to build consumer-centric, technology-led, disruptive products and services. Apart from this, the senior leadership team at Lenskart will mentor the start-ups to navigate challenges during the early phase of business building.

Speaking on the launch, Peyush Bansal, Founder, and CEO, Lenskart, said, “We have traversed the challenging journey as a start-up to become a unicorn. We believe it’s time to give back to the ecosystem and support exceptional entrepreneurs by helping them build scalable enterprises. We have a decade of experience and expertise in building and scaling a D2C business through technology which can be leveraged by start-ups to realize their vision of building world-class businesses.”

Since the initiative is designed to help start-ups scale, Lenskart will select early-growth stage ventures with clear in-market evidence of traction and customer adoption.

Focus sectors for investing include D2C eyewear and eye care brands, technologies enabling access to vision care, eye testing technologies, omnichannel retail solutions across logistics, supply chain, merchandising, marketing, in-store automation, and deep tech solutions for eyewear, retail, and e-commerce.

The Lenskart Vision Fund initiative is being run in partnership with Applyifi, and endeavors to attract start-ups that have a clear product-market fit and a defensible competitive differentiator.