In 2026, a watch brand launched in India backed by ₹25 crore in funding. The investors: Nikhil Kamath, Vivek Oberoi, Tanmay Bhat. The watchmaker: Harman Wadhwa, trained in Neuchâtel. This doesn't happen in Indian watchmaking. Until now.
The Numbers
₹25 crore. Five collections. India's only formally Switzerland-trained watchmaker on the founding team. Rotoris did not enter the Indian watch market — it announced itself to it.
Most Indian micro-brands are bootstrapped: a founder with savings and a passion, an Instagram account, a Shopify store. They grow slowly, release one collection at a time, reinvest revenue into the next watch. This is an honourable model and has produced excellent watches. Rotoris chose a different path entirely.
Harman Wadhwa
Co-founder and head of watchmaking. Wadhwa studied at the WOSTEP school in Neuchâtel — the Watchmakers of Switzerland Training and Educational Program, the institution that has trained watchmakers for Patek Philippe, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and Audemars Piguet. He is the only Indian to have done this.
This is not a marketing credential. A WOSTEP graduate understands movement architecture, regulation, and finishing at a level that no self-taught watchmaker — however passionate — can match. It is the structural advantage that separates Rotoris from every other Indian brand at launch.
The Five Collections
Monarch: The flagship. A moonphase complication — a display that tracks the lunar cycle and requires genuine movement engineering to execute properly. Silver and black dial, applied hour markers, the kind of watch that collectors photograph.
Astonia: Skeletonised. The movement visible through an open dial, its components visible and deliberate. Skeletonisation is technically demanding — every bridge and plate must be shaped not just for function but for beauty.
Auriqua: Precious stones. The most luxury-positioned of the five, directly targeting the high-jewellery watch market that has previously been the exclusive territory of Swiss maisons.
Arvion: Single hand. The minimalist statement — one hand, one revolution per twelve hours. The most counterintuitive watch in the collection, and arguably the most interesting.
Manifesta: Chronograph. The sports watch. The entry point for collectors who come to Rotoris from tool-watch culture rather than dress-watch culture.
What Rotoris Is Building
Every Indian watch brand aspires to prove that India can make watches. Rotoris aspires to prove that India can make fine watches — watches that compete with European independents not just on price but on specification, finishing, and complication. This is a different and harder claim. Whether they succeed will define the next decade of Indian horology.
