Online eyewear and contact lens group MyOptique has acquired premium UK online eyewear business Eyewearbrands.com for an undisclosed amount.
The acquisition saw the firm move further into the luxury eyewear, a statement said. Eyewearbrands sells 75 designer labels including Dior, Oliver Peoples and Miu Miu.
The web retail group has also announced acquiring German eyewear business 4Care, which sells prescription glasses, contact lenses and sunglasses through its website Lensbest.de. The deal included wholesale operation Acumed and the brands Lennox Eyewear and Lenscare.
The new acquisitions join Glasses Direct, Sunglasses Shop, LensOn, MyOptique and Netzoptiker in the group’s retail brand portfolio, and were financed by existing investors who were joined in this round totalling €28m (£20m) by Harbert European Growth Capital and Amery Capital.
MyOptique CEO Kevin Cornils said: ‘The acquisition of Eyewearbrands will substantially increase our premium designer offering in a fast-growing market segment. Consumers are becoming ever more enthusiastic about buying their glasses online, purchasing more frequently than historically has been achieved on the high street, and at MyOptique our growing brand portfolio presents them with the best possible set of choices online.
‘It is our goal to be number one or two in each of the leading European markets, and with these acquisitions we’ve done that across the UK, German and Scandinavian markets where the online segment is most developed.’
MyOptique said while the contact lens market ‘has successfully migrated online, accounting for around 15 per cent of sales, the prescription glasses sector has been a relative latecomer online but is now accelerating’. A UK average of 15.2 per cent and German average 11.6 per cent of total retail sales were now made online, compared to 3-5 per cent for spectacles, it estimated, saying the sector was ‘approaching a tipping point’.
MyOptique Group’s prescription eyewear business has seen growth of over 50 per cent in the last year, including the success of its own brand frames including London Retro which saw a 98 per cent increase year-on-year.