It’s only fitting that Lenskart went shopping in Spain before its initial public offering (IPO).

Late in July, the Indian multinational eyewear company acquired an 80% stake in Spanish fashion-eyewear brand Meller for Rs 407 crore. This comes as the company filed its draft red herring prospectus for its Rs 2,150 crore public-market debut in the same week.

The acquisition was another small step in Lenskart’s global expansion. The company now operates 656 stores outside India, which together pull in around 40% of its total revenue. Its footprint is sprawling, including 28 subsidiaries, two joint ventures, and three associate companies spanning 14 countries.

Lenskart may be spreading its wings wider, but Peyush Bansal, its founder and CEO, is in no hurry.

He knows what happens when Indian companies scale too fast, too soon, in global markets. Hospitality chain Oyo* had to pullTechnode back after an over-aggressive global rollout. Food-delivery giant Zomato shutLivemintZomato exits almost all foreign markets, liquidates 10 overseas subsidiaries in less than a year its overseas operations and called them “experiments”. Ride-hailing firm Ola Cabs exitedBusiness StandardOla Cabs shuts down international ventures, shifts focus to Indian market all its international markets. 

Lenskart seems to be bucking the trend so far. Not with brute force. Or billions in advertising. But with discipline, technology, and, ironically enough, restraint.

“We only bite as much as we can chew,” Bansal toldYoutube Sumer Juneja, managing partner at equity firm Softbank Investment Advisers, in 2023. Bansal was referring to Lenskart’s entryEconomic TimesLenskart’s Neso Brands invests $4 million in France’s Le Petit Lunetier into Paris that year with a 29% stake in French eyewear brand Le Petit Lunetier. 

In FY25, the company’s revenue grew 22% from the previous year to Rs 6,652 crore, and it posted its first profit of Rs 297 crore from a Rs 10 crore loss in FY24.