Indian luxury watch brand Bangalore Watch Firm (BWC) has raised $1.4 million in seed funding from a gaggle of its clients, together with household workplace principals and high-net-worth people from India and abroad.

The Bengaluru-based startup mentioned it plans to make use of the funding to develop its presence within the worldwide impartial watch market, with a deal with a small variety of abroad places.

Based in 2018 by former know-how executives Nirupesh Joshi and Mercy Amalraj, BWC makes mechanical watches in India and has clients in additional than 30 international locations.

Its collections draw on themes together with aviation, house, cricket and the outside, with designs constructed round up to date Indian tales.

“The impartial watch business has proven that nice watch manufacturers can come from anyplace. Manufacturers like MING and Christopher Ward have constructed world communities by having a transparent standpoint. We imagine India will be a part of that world impartial watch story, with a distinctly fashionable Indian perspective,” Joshi mentioned.

Plans to develop manufacturing

BWC at present operates one flagship boutique in Bengaluru and largely sells via a direct-to-customer mannequin.

In its fundraising announcement, the startup mentioned its watches are priced between Rs 1.5 lakh and Rs 3 lakh. Its web site, nevertheless, additionally lists some fashions beneath that vary.

It has an annual manufacturing capability of about 1,500 watches and plans to extend this fourfold over the following three to 5 years.

BWC additionally stories a repeat buy fee of 30%. Its concierge-style gross sales mannequin has helped it promote limited-edition watches with out counting on a big community of bodily shops.

Fairly than constructing an intensive retail community in India, BWC plans to determine a presence in two to 3 abroad places in markets with established watch-collector communities. It is usually contemplating one further location in India.

“India is at an thrilling level in its journey, with the world paying larger consideration to what’s being constructed right here. We need to be a part of that story, whereas additionally taking an Indian model to a world viewers. We have now all the time believed {that a} world-class watch model will be constructed from Bangalore, and the chance now could be to take that perception, and the watches now we have constructed round fashionable India, to collectors world wide,” Amalraj mentioned.

Watches constructed round Indian tales

BWC has used supplies linked to Indian aviation and maritime historical past in a few of its watches, together with aluminium recovered from decommissioned fighter plane and materials related to the previous plane service INS Vikrant.

It has additionally developed Cerasteel, its proprietary watch-case materials that mixes a metal construction with a ceramic coating.

For its Apogee Karman Line mission, the corporate examined a watch beneath simulated low-pressure and low-temperature situations earlier than sending it on a high-altitude balloon flight.

BWC mentioned the mission made the mannequin India’s first “space-qualified” watch. The balloon reached about 114,000 toes, or roughly 35km, throughout the stratospheric flight. That is beneath the 100km Kármán line generally used to mark the boundary of outer house, so the “space-qualified” description stays the corporate’s designation.

One other latest mannequin, Peninsula Carbon, makes use of a proprietary dial materials known as ReforgeCarbon. The fabric combines carbon fibres with recovered carbon black sourced via the pyrolysis of commercial waste and end-of-life supplies, it mentioned.

The corporate has beforehand described the fabric as utilizing carbon recovered from the ambiance, however its technical specs determine recovered carbon black from industrial waste as the fabric used within the dials.

Rising worldwide publicity

BWC participated in Dubai Watch Week in 2025 and made its debut at Geneva Watch Days in 2026, the place it held a personal viewing for collectors, media and members of the watch business.

The corporate has additionally entered watches within the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG).

Two BWC watches, Agumbe and Mannar, appeared within the GPHG’s competing-watch lists in 2025. The corporate returned for a second consecutive yr in 2026 with Peninsula Carbon.

Meaning three particular person BWC watches have appeared throughout the 2025 and 2026 editions, somewhat than the corporate being listed on the awards for 3 consecutive years.

The brand new funding will now assist BWC’s subsequent part of worldwide enlargement because it seeks to extend manufacturing whereas sustaining a comparatively small bodily retail community.