Project Lobster raises two million to double its stores in Spain

Project Lobster, a brand that designs and manufactures prescription and sunglasses, has closed a two-million-euro financing round, led by the online investment platform for startups Dozen Investments. The operation included the participation of Avançsa, as well as previous partners of the company such as Abac Capital. This is the second financing round carried out by the Barcelona-based company. The first was in 2019 and was led by Cabiedes & Partners. Initially, it raised 300,000 euros, an amount that was later increased to 1.2 million euros.

The two million obtained by Project Lobster this time will be used to double the number of stores it has in Spain. Currently, it has five, distributed between Barcelona (3), Madrid (1), and Valencia (1). The forecast is to reach more than 10 points of sale this 2023, with a focus on adding establishments in the cities where it is already present, but also on reaching other provincial capitals. In both Barcelona and Madrid, it will open two new stores, respectively.

In the medium term, the company rules out expanding with establishments beyond the country. The same is not true for its online store, where most sales are concentrated in foreign markets such as Germany, France, and the Netherlands, accounting for around 70% of turnover. The company, which has not yet registered profits, does not disclose its 2022 revenues but states that it expects them to grow by 50% this year.

The resources from the second financing round will also be used to expand the workforce, although the company does not specify the hiring figures it plans. Project Lobster has 40 professionals and will now focus on hiring opticians for its stores. Its glasses, including prescription lenses, are priced at an average of 150 euros and have a delivery time of 72 hours, factors that differentiate them from other competitors for its founder and CEO, Óscar Valleder.

The entrepreneur managed to raise 40,000 euros to create Project Lobster in 2018. He did so shortly after finishing his Business Administration and Management (ADE) studies at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF). After a bad experience buying glasses, he began to study the sector and found that it was not very digitized and presented inefficiencies. He presented his proposal to sell prescription glasses online to the UPF's Yuzz Young Entrepreneurs program and won it. Later he became part of Lanzadera, the platform for startups created by Juan Roig, president of Mercadona.

The brand is responsible not only for selling the glasses but also for designing and manufacturing them, although this last part is subcontracted. On the one hand, the lenses are made in laboratories in Barcelona and Madrid, while the frames are produced in the Chinese city of Shenzhen. The company assures that it does not do so for reasons of savings, but for the quality of the products offered by the plants in this Asian city. According to its CEO, grouping the entire process under one umbrella allows them to have higher margins and offer a better experience.