Eleven-year-old Indian watch brand Jaipur Watch Company (JWC) on Saturday (September 14) said it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), to make watches celebrating the "missions of ISRO" including the Chandrayaan mission to safely land and operate a rover on the moon.
Gaurav Mehta, founder of JWC, said on the sidelines of the announcement: "ISRO... has provided us with the satellite imagery and things which we can use to develop our designs. Once done, those designs will be approved by ISRO before going into production."
Making the announcement at the launch of the latest JWC collection - Brides of Jaipur Watch Company, comprising jewellery watches for women - Mehta added: "Globally, you will see a lot of NASA-themed watches... I was very disappointed that no one has actually done ISRO-themed watches which are officially licensed... We sought permission from ISRO, did all the paperwork, got the official license... it took almost six months, from applying to getting the MoU."
To be sure, ISRO-inspired watches have been made in India before. In 2021, Bangalore Watch Company (BWC) released its Apogee collection to pay homage to the Indian space program. In 2024, BWC even designed an experiment to see if its Apogee watches could survive in the stratosphere. It sent a watch 114,000 km up in a modified spaceship to see if it survives. The company reported that it did.
Speaking about the future of mechanical watches, Mehta said he is not worried even though the segment he targets (watches priced between Rs 35,000 and Rs 10 lakh) overlaps to an extent with some premium smartwatches. "Many people are double-wristing now," he said, referring to the practice of wearing a different watch on each wrist (something he's currently doing with the prototype of the Chandrayaan watch on his right wrist).
Mehta added he has 400 watches in his private collection now, up from 300-odd when he went on Shark Tank India Season 2 in 2023. Asked about his latest watch purchase, he said it was a "weird" buy: a nurse's watch that's meant to be clipped on to the collar.
Jaipur Watch Company on Shark Tank
Gaurav Mehta was on Season 2 of Shark Tank India. A decision, he said, he made only after someone in the Shark Tank team reached out to him on LinkedIn to apply: "I had seen 'Shark Tank' US and I thought there would be so many startups applying, they wouldn't pick us."
Jaipur Watch Company launched in 2013 with what is to date its most popular watch: the coin watch. Since that appearance on Shark Tank India, when incidentally none of the Sharks invested in the company, Mehta said a lot has changed. For one, his annual revenue is now 12 times what it was in FY 2021-22, Mehta said - the number he had reported on Shark Tank was Rs 1.07 crore for financial year 2022. "I think Shark Tank really plays a role because people noticed us for the first time on a global level, not just India level. And post that we also used that opportunity. We marketed well upon that we opened up multiple stores, and physical stores drastically improved our numbers: 60 percent of our sales come from physical stores right now." This, compared with 65 percent online the year he went on Shark Tank. Mehta added that the company sells about 250 watches a month now, with 95 percent sales in India and the remainder across the UAE, US and Australia.
Compared with the time he went on Shark Tank, Mehta said the proportion of sales from pret vs bespoke watches has changed to 90 percent ready-to-wear from 80 percent before. He attributes this to the steep rise in gold prices which he said affects the bespoke range more.
Gaurav Mehta has also raised Rs 2.4 crore for 8 percent equity this year - on Shark Tank, he'd asked for Rs 50 lakh for 2 percent equity. Mehta said the current investors are strategic investors, with a background in jewellery. Mehta said the company plans to open its first store in the UAE this year.
Materials and movements
Headquartered in Jaipur, Jaipur Watch Company has drawn design inspiration from Indian coins, stamps and arts like Pichwai and Raja Ravi Varma paintings. Mehta added that the architecture and jewellery styles of Jaipur are also sources of inspiration. Jantar Mantar and Sawai Man Singh II's obsession with astronomy and accurate timekeeping are however missing from this set. Mehta said this is "because it's a very direct design interpretation I think, and we are more about picking up smaller elements from the city and using them in the piece".
In terms of materials, the company's King's Wristwear collection with a British Raj-era coin on the dial runs on Swiss Ronda 702. The latest Brides of Jaipur Watch Company is all about mother of pearl, minerals and metals with Miyota 2035 Quartz movement at its core.
For the Missions of ISRO, Mehta said the company is looking at "some extraterritorial materials". Safe to say that meteorites will feature in these watches when they launch. For now, the watches are in prototype stage, and it could be months before they are ready to launch.
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