Lenskart’s rise feels like a classic startup story: an Indian brand builds stores, tightens supply chains, goes global, and suddenly everyone talks about a billion-dollar IPO. But when the loud valuation talk meets the quieter, audited numbers, you get a mismatch — and mismatches make for a good story. This piece walks that line: the company has real wins, but the valuation signals around its IPO are wildly inconsistent — and that contradiction is the story itself.

The simple facts (what we can rely on)

For FY25 Lenskart reported operating revenue of roughly ₹6,652 crore and turned profitable with a net profit of about ₹297 crore. Those are company-reported, audited figures in the DRHP and summarized by several mainstream outlets. These are the hard anchors for the valuation debate — everything else should be judged against them.

The valuation whispers (and the roaring headlines)

As Lenskart prepared to list, the company and market whispers floated a target listing valuation near $10 billion; some investors and portfolio reports earlier marked the company at $6.1 billion. At the same time, the founder bought back a small slice of shares for ₹222 crore, a move that implies a company price closer to ~₹8,700 crore (~$1 billion) for that block. Same company, multiple price tags — welcome to modern private markets.

Do the multiples make sense? Let’s do the math — clean and simple

Journalists and analysts usually measure these claims by revenue multiples. Use the FY25 revenue (~$755 million as widely quoted) as the base:

• $10 billion IPO target ÷ $755M revenue ≈ 13.3× revenue.
• $6.1 billion portfolio mark ÷ $755M revenue ≈ 8.1× revenue.
• $1 billion implied by the buyback ÷ $755M revenue ≈ 1.3× revenue.

That’s a very wide spread — from ~1.3× to ~13× — and it matters because it tells two stories at once: some buyers are pricing near-term execution and a realistic retail multiple; others are pricing a future where Lenskart becomes a tech-like profit machine. The math is simple; what’s messy is the narrative that tries to hold both impressions.

Why the $10B whisper is a stretch (but not impossible)

A 13× revenue multiple is normally a valuation you see in software, not in retail. To justify it, Lenskart would have to prove one of the following: sustained high revenue growth far above peers, dramatic margin expansion, or new high-margin businesses (think subscriptions, medical services, or a profitable platform play). The FY25 profit is a positive sign — it shows the company can run a profitable model — but profitability alone doesn’t suddenly make retail multiples compress to tech levels. You can be profitable and still be worth a normal retail multiple.

how peers trade (Warby Parker as a reality check)

Warby Parker, a public US eyewear peer, did roughly $770–820 million in revenue recently and trades at a market cap in the low single-digit billions. That implies a revenue multiple materially below 10× — closer to the 3–5× range depending on timing. If a scaled, global eyewear peer with public pricing trades at ~4×, asking 13× for Lenskart requires a very strong explanation. The peer comparison doesn’t prove Lenskart is overvalued, but it sets the benchmark for what the public market historically pays for similar businesses.

The buyback twist — insiders paying much less

Perhaps the most telling move was the founder’s buyback of a 2.5% stake for ₹222 crore. That transaction values the repurchased block at roughly ₹8,700 crore (~$1B). Why would insiders repurchase at a valuation so much lower than headline private marks or IPO whispers? There are many possible reasons — promoter control, portfolio rebalancing, or negotiated bargains between private parties — but when insiders and some funds are transacting at vastly different implied prices, it tells you the “market” doesn’t yet agree on a single story.

Store-level sanity check — not magical economics

Lenskart runs thousands of physical stores plus a large online business. Using FY25 revenue and a reported store count gives an average revenue per store that is solid but not miraculous. That’s important because a valuation premised on each store becoming a massive profit center needs to pass the store-level smell test — and on average, it doesn’t. Retail scale helps, but scale alone is not a guaranteed path to a 10×+ revenue multiple.

So what’s going on? A sensible narrative to explain the gap

Three forces are colliding here: (1) private-market enthusiasm and strategic buyers bidding aggressively; (2) cautious insiders and secondary buyers negotiating real cash deals at lower prices; and (3) a public-market IPO process that will ultimately pick a clearing price. Until the IPO actually lists, all three will coexist. The inconsistency is not evidence that the company is fraud — instead it’s a live signal that different participants have different time horizons and risk appetites. The question for investors is which version of the future is likeliest.

Quick checklist for readers before they decide to believe the headlines

1. Look at FY25 revenue and profit — those are real and verifiable. If growth or margins slow next year, the high valuations get harder to defend. Entrackr
2. Watch the IPO pricing — that is the market’s best answer to the valuation debate.
3. Read the DRHP for margin detail and international revenue splits — Lenskart has a big chunk of sales outside India now, which changes the narrative.

Conclusion — the scroll-stopper

Lenskart has crossed a major threshold: it’s scaled, turned profitable, and is ready for the public market. That’s real progress. But the price tags floating around — $1B, $6.1B, and $10B — can’t all be true at once. The headline $10 billion target is possible only if the company keeps growing fast, packs in higher margins, and convinces public-market buyers it’s more than a retailer. Until the IPO trades in public light, treat the high valuations as aspirational, not established fact. The most useful place to look? The IPO price and the next two quarters of reported numbers. Those will separate hype from reality.