Indian luxury watch brand Bangalore Watch Company (BWC) has raised $1.4 million in seed funding from a group of its customers, including family office principals and high-net-worth individuals from India and overseas.
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The Bengaluru-based startup said it plans to use the funding to expand its presence in the international independent watch market, with a focus on a small number of overseas locations.
Founded in 2018 by former technology executives Nirupesh Joshi and Mercy Amalraj, BWC makes mechanical watches in India and has customers in more than 30 countries.
Its collections draw on themes including aviation, space, cricket and the outdoors, with designs built around contemporary Indian stories.
“The independent watch industry has shown that great watch brands can come from anywhere. Brands like MING and Christopher Ward have built global communities by having a clear point of view. We believe India can be part of that global independent watch story, with a distinctly modern Indian perspective,” Joshi said.
Plans to expand production
BWC currently operates one flagship boutique in Bengaluru and largely sells through a direct-to-customer model.
In its fundraising announcement, the startup said its watches are priced between Rs 1.5 lakh and Rs 3 lakh. Its website, however, also lists some models below that range.
It has an annual production capacity of about 1,500 watches and plans to increase this fourfold over the next three to five years.
BWC also reports a repeat purchase rate of 30%. Its concierge-style sales model has helped it sell limited-edition watches without relying on a large network of physical stores.
Rather than building an extensive retail network in India, BWC plans to establish a presence in two to three overseas locations in markets with established watch-collector communities. It is also considering one additional location in India.
“India is at an exciting point in its journey, with the world paying greater attention to what is being built here. We want to be part of that story, while also taking an Indian brand to a global audience. We have always believed that a world-class watch brand can be built from Bangalore, and the opportunity now is to take that belief, and the watches we have built around modern India, to collectors around the world,” Amalraj said.
Watches built around Indian stories
BWC has used materials linked to Indian aviation and maritime history in some of its watches, including aluminium recovered from decommissioned fighter aircraft and material associated with the former aircraft carrier INS Vikrant.
It has also developed Cerasteel, its proprietary watch-case material that combines a steel structure with a ceramic coating.
For its Apogee Karman Line project, the company tested a watch under simulated low-pressure and low-temperature conditions before sending it on a high-altitude balloon flight.
BWC said the project made the model India’s first “space-qualified” watch. The balloon reached about 114,000 feet, or roughly 35km, during the stratospheric flight. This is below the 100km Kármán line commonly used to mark the boundary of outer space, so the “space-qualified” description remains the company’s designation.
Another recent model, Peninsula Carbon, uses a proprietary dial material called ReforgeCarbon. The material combines carbon fibres with recovered carbon black sourced through the pyrolysis of industrial waste and end-of-life materials, it said.
The company has previously described the material as using carbon recovered from the atmosphere, but its technical specifications identify recovered carbon black from industrial waste as the material used in the dials.
Growing international exposure
BWC participated in Dubai Watch Week in 2025 and made its debut at Geneva Watch Days in 2026, where it held a private viewing for collectors, media and members of the watch industry.
The company has also entered watches in the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG).
Two BWC watches, Agumbe and Mannar, appeared in the GPHG’s competing-watch lists in 2025. The company returned for a second consecutive year in 2026 with Peninsula Carbon.
That means three individual BWC watches have appeared across the 2025 and 2026 editions, rather than the company being listed at the awards for three consecutive years.
The new funding will now support BWC’s next phase of international expansion as it seeks to increase production while maintaining a relatively small physical retail network.
