Premium Watch Startup Rotoris Raises $3 Mn From Nikhil Kamath, Venture Catalysts

D2C watch brand Rotoris has bagged $3 Mn (about INR 27 Cr) in a seed funding round co-led by Zerodha’s Nikhil Kamath, VC firms Venture Catalysts and 100Unicorns as well as actor Vivek Oberoi and content creator Tanmay Bhat. 

The funding round also saw participation from startup founders and angel investors like Honasa Consumer’s CEO Varun Alagh, Noise’s founder Gaurav Khatri, OfBusiness’s Nitin Jain, Shiprocket’s Vishesh Khurana, among others. 

Founded earlier this year by Bella Vita’s founder Aakash Anand alongside Wolfpack Labs’ founding partner Prerna Gupta, and Drink Free Advertising Media’s cofounders Anant Narula and Kunal Kapania, Rotoris has plans to disrupt the uber premium analogue watch market. The startup aims to build “India’s first global watch brand”. 

Although the startup is yet to launch a product, the startup claims that its watches are designed on Swiss-level watchmaking standards. It plans to debut its five collections — Auriqua, Monarch, Astonia, Arvion and Manifesta — next month. Besides, Rotoris also intends to open its first “Rotoris Experience Store” in New Delhi, to showcase the products. 

As for the fresh capital raised, the premium watch startup intends to utilise the fresh capital to deepen its manufacturing capabilities, invest in product engineering, expand its supply chain and roll out its inventory.  The startup also plans to bring on new talent across product, design, and branding to support its global ambitions. 

Although operating a D2C consumer brand is not a strange for Bella Vita’s Anand, Rotoris marks a sharp pivot for the entrepreneur after his last failed AI venture, Unikon.ai. The venture had to shut shop within a year of inception as months of burning cash took a toll on its balance sheet. 

The startup raised close to $3 Mn in funding soon after launch from the likes of Kamath, Lenskart’s Peysh Bansal, among others, and had a strong pitch of a social media and networking platform powered by GenAI. 

Burning close to INR 2 Cr per month while trying to scale Unikon.ai, Anand decided to pivot the business to build a D2C brand. “I’m returning to my roots: building a disruptive D2C brand, where I’ve driven growth and profitability before,” he had said back in March. 

This D2C pivot has manifested in the shape of Rotoris, given the parent entity of the brand as well as Unikon.ai being the same – Unikon Innovations Private Limited.

With luxury and premium watch markets in India still largely untapped by domestic brands, Rotoris is seeking to create a new playbook for international expansion from the ground up. India’s watch market is booming, valued around $4-5 Bn in 2025, with strong growth driven by rising incomes, fashion consciousness, and the smartwatch trend, especially in luxury and premium segments growing at a CAGR of 10-14%, as per Statista. 

Meanwhile, India’s D2C space is also expanding with a strong growth trajectory and significant increases in market size. Many D2C companies are also adopting omnichannel strategies, including opening offline stores and pop-ups to deepen consumer connections, while expanding beyond metros into Tier II and III cities.

Notably, India’s D2C market is projected to reach a massive $300 Bn opportunity by 2030, growing at a CAGR of around 24% from 2021-2030, as per Inc42.