AIF Says Proud To Have Skipped Lenskart IPO: 'We Asked Peyush Bansal About LASIK'
Persistence Capital publicly declared it skipped the Lenskart IPO, while coyly refusing to confirm if it was ever formally invited.
In a twist to the frenzy around the Lenskart IPO, alternative investment fund Persistence Capital posted on X, saying, "We are proud to say that we also skipped this IPO. We will not comment on whether we were approached in the first place."
Responding to a reply which read that the author's sources say Peyush Bansal personally reached out to Persistence because he really wanted their name on the cap table, Persistence shot back with its own punchline: "We asked him about LASIK and the call dropped. It was definitely the network."
The back-and-forth on social media comes at a time when Lenskart's upcoming IPO has become the centre of debate in market circles — not just for its scale, but for what critics say is an inflated valuation.
Amid the noise, this investor has already walked away. Persistence Capital publicly declared it skipped the IPO, while coyly refusing to confirm if it was ever formally invited.
Quant Mutual Fund founder and CIO Sandeep Tandon has also been among the loudest sceptics in the inflated primary market. Speaking to NDTV Profit, Tandon warned that the IPO mania is being fuelled by "stupidity," with investors willing to pay valuations that even developed markets won't accept.
"If the US is not willing to pay these companies this sort of valuation, then why should I pay in India? … This is stupidity on our part that we are giving these companies such a high valuation," said Tandon.
Tandon cautioned that the risks are "massive," noting that 60% of newly listed stocks in the past year are trading below their IPO price. According to him, early investors and even the "best brains of the country" are simply cashing out because demand is disproportionately in favour of sellers.
Veteran investor Shankar Sharma echoed the indifference. Speaking to NDTV Profit, he dismissed the offer: "I have no interest in Lenskart IPO… I never met Peyush Bansal."
Sharma also took a swipe at the valuation pegged at around Rs 70,000 crore, where Lenskart is reportedly seeking a price-to-sales multiple of over 10x and a price-to-earnings ratio of 230x. In a previous X post, he compared the pricing to past overheated tech IPOs, suggesting criticism is being brushed aside as an "organised campaign."
