'India is dumbest IPO market': Shankar Sharma slams backlash against Lenskart IPO pricing

Veteran investor Shankar Sharma slammed India as “the dumbest IPO market” in a scathing critique that used Lenskart’s recent listing as a springboard. Despite the eyewear firm’s IPO being fully subscribed on Day 1, Sharma questioned the market's outrage over its valuation, comparing it to earlier tech listings that he says were priced at absurdly higher multiples.

“I have no stake in Lenskart, nor do I care if it’s subscribed zero or a thousand times,” Sharma told NDTV Profit. But the noise around its 8–10x revenue multiple, he argued, is misplaced given that companies like Paytm and Nykaa went public at 25–50x just a few years ago.

Sharma's comments come as Lenskart’s Rs 70,000 crore IPO — seeking Rs 235–238 for every rupee earned — triggered criticism over aggressive pricing. Yet, the issue was oversubscribed, with retail and institutional investors taking up their quotas. The anchor round drew Rs 3,268 crore from heavyweights like SBI Mutual Fund, HDFC MF, and Franklin Templeton.

“The poor chap is already underpricing himself relative to the earlier ones,” Sharma said. “Why are you killing him? You should be killing all the anchor investors, all the marquee names, who backed IPOs that crashed 40% to 80%.”

He dismissed the backlash against Lenskart as “a grand spectacle,” driven more by social media frenzy than by rational analysis. “This is all anchoring bias,” he added. “India is the dumbest IPO market in the history of IPO markets, with billions flowing in from retail investors.”

Referring to past listings like CarTrade, Nykaa, Zomato, and Paytm, which tanked post-listing, Sharma said the pattern remains unchanged: “Get a hot IPO done, collect the money, then let the stock collapse.”

Still, he stopped short of blaming promoters. “It’s capitalism. The regulator approved it. If the IPO tanks, it’s buyer beware.”

In Sharma’s view, the problem isn’t this IPO — it’s the herd mentality. “There is a sucker born every minute,” he said. “In India, we have one every microsecond.”