Berlin-based Mister Spex, an online store selling various brands of prescription glasses and contact lenses, raises €65M for store and international expansion
Context & Ripple Effects
Mister Spex's €65M round lands in a German vertical e-commerce market that has repeatedly funded category specialists going cross-border: Brillen.de, a direct eyewear rival, raised $49M from TCV in 2016 to take its marketplace international (Brillen.de's TCV-backed expansion), and Lampenwelt.de pulled in €120M from 3i to scale its lamp shop across 12 countries (Lampenwelt.de's €120M raise).
What distinguishes this round is the stated use of proceeds: Mister Spex is putting capital into physical stores as well as international markets, making it an omnichannel bet rather than a pure-play online expansion like its predecessors.
First-order effects
- Mister Spex can now open more physical stores while entering new country markets, directly competing with Brillen.de on both channels in European eyewear.
Second-order effects
- Brillen.de faces a better-funded omnichannel competitor in its home category, pressuring it to match store presence or differentiate its marketplace model.
- Optical retail incumbents in Mister Spex's target markets now compete against a chain that pairs brand-name frames online with local fitting stores.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds across these German vertical specialists, category e-commerce leaders will consolidate around hybrid online-plus-store models as the price of international scale, rather than shipping-only models.
The trend: German vertical e-commerce players are pairing large growth rounds with physical retail footprints as they push beyond their home markets.