Alpha Wave Ventures just sold ₹1,857 crore worth of Lenskart shares in a block deal. This exit, driven by surging stock prices, sees early VC money replaced by large domestic and sovereign institutional investors. The National Pension System Trust alone bought nearly ₹500 crore, making it the biggest new institutional holder.
How We Got Here
Alpha Wave's exit follows a trend of early Lenskart backers cashing out, including SoftBank and Temasek earlier this quarter. Lenskart's share price has jumped 41.2% year-to-date, fueled by its Q1 FY27 net profit surging 273% to ₹228.4 Cr.
The Numbers
- Alpha Wave sold 2.94 Cr shares at ₹630 apiece, offloading nearly 1.7% of Lenskart.
- NPS Trust acquired 78.6 Lakh shares for ₹495 Cr, while ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund bought 60.3 Lakh shares for ₹380 Cr.
- Other major institutional buyers included Bajaj Life Insurance, Goldman Sachs, HDFC Life, and Kuwait Investment Authority.
- SoftBank dumped Lenskart shares worth ₹2,887.9 Cr days prior, and Temasek offloaded ₹1,934 Cr last month.
- Q1 FY27 operating revenue for Lenskart also jumped 43% YoY to ₹2,714.2 Cr, pushing brokerages like Goldman Sachs to raise target prices to ₹715.
What Happens Next
🇮🇳 Why This Matters for India
For product managers and investors tracking Indian D2C exits, this signals a clear path for large-scale liquidity driven by consistent profits, not just hyper-growth, attracting long-term domestic capital.
The Take
This is a textbook case of venture capital delivering, replacing high-risk early money with stable institutional funds. The real story here is the maturity of the Indian public markets to absorb these large-scale exits without volatility, which is a win for the entire startup ecosystem's liquidity narrative.
Source:
Inc42 ↗