Can This Indian Watch Startup Take on Global Luxury Brands?

Gurugram-based luxury watchmaker Rotoris has raised ₹70 crore (~$8.5 Mn) in a Series A round led by Blume Ventures. The round also pulled in 9Unicorns, Centricity, several family offices including members of the Dabur family and actor Rannvijay Singha.

What stands out isn’t just the cheque size. This is Rotoris’s second raise in under a year, coming barely 10 months after a $3 Mn seed round backed by Nikhil Kamath, Vivek Anand Oberoi and over 30 founder-investors including Mamaearth’s Varun Alagh.

That pace of back-to-back fundraising, for a company selling India-made luxury watches, says something about how fast investors now believe this category can scale.

The Details

• Round size ₹70 Cr (~$8.5 Mn), Series A
• Lead investor Blume Ventures
• Other participants 9Unicorns, Centricity, Dabur family offices (Diwakar Goel, Atul Singh, Adhiraj Burman), actor Rannvijay Singha
• Previous round $3 Mn seed (December 2025), led by Nikhil Kamath, Vivek Anand Oberoi, Venture Catalysts, 100Unicorns
• Total raised so far $11.5 Mn across two rounds in under 12 months
• Use of funds R&D, production capacity, Rotoris House retail expansion (Mumbai, New York)

A Watch You Can’t Just Walk In And Buy

Rotoris doesn’t sell through regular retail. Access runs through the Rotoris Registry an invitation-only waitlist that’s already crossed nearly 100,000 sign-ups.

Its first “chapter” a numbered run of 2,100 watches sold out within days of its February 2026 launch. That’s a scarcity-driven playbook borrowed straight from luxury fashion drops, not traditional watchmaking.

Every piece is hand-assembled at the company’s Rotoris Atelier in Gurugram, using movements sourced from Switzerland and Japan, under horologists who previously worked at Patek Philippe, IWC and Tiffany & Co.

Betting on Indians Trading Up

The timing lines up with a real shift in buyer behaviour. Luxury and high-end watches made up 70% of India’s watch sales in FY25, up sharply from just 48% in FY20.

Younger buyers are increasingly chasing mechanical movements, distinctive design and limited runs exactly Rotoris’s lane. The company also says 40% of current demand comes from outside India, from markets like the US, Dubai and Australia.

Founder Aakash Anand previously built and fully exited Bella Vita, a beauty and personal care brand relevant because scaling a D2C brand to exit is a very different skill from building a luxury goods house, and investors are clearly betting that playbook transfers.

A Number That Doesn’t Quite Add Up

Here’s a detail most coverage glossed over: Rotoris states this round as ₹70 crore, “about $8.5 Mn.” At current exchange rates, ₹70 crore is closer to $7.4 Mn, not $8.5 Mn a gap too large to be rounding.

That could simply mean ₹70 crore is just Blume’s cheque inside a larger total round, or that the company is using a different conversion basis. Either way, it’s a reminder to read Indian funding headlines in rupee terms first, dollar terms second the dollar figure is often the one doing the PR heavy lifting.

The Bottom Line

Rotoris has nailed scarcity marketing and fast fundraising the harder test now is whether hand-assembled, India-made watches can actually hold their value and prestige the way legacy Swiss houses have for a century.