Daily Bread founder floats new venture

Hong Kong-based serial entrepreneur Arjun Sekri, founder of India’s first boutique bakery Daily Bread Gourmet Food, has floated his new venture Chrono Watch Company, a watch distribution, retailing and e-tailing company headquartered in Bangalore.

The business model of Chrono Watch Company will be to bring to India an exclusive collection of Swiss and international brands featuring elegant and sporty, accessible and aspirational luxury lifestyle timepieces for men and women. The e-commerce site of the venture will be up and running by the second week of February and will retail about 1,500 different watch models.

“We also plan to launch retail stores in the next couple of months in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Kolkata after the e-commerce launch,” Sekri told Deccan Herald. He will bootstrap the venture with Rs 3 crore each for the e-commerce site and the retail outlets, with plans to raise a further Rs 10 crore in Series A funding from venture capitalists once the venture goes on steam.

“Some PE firms have already shown interests in Chrono, but we have not finalised anything yet,” he added.

Asked about the difference between other premium luxury watches and ones to be sold by Chrono, Sekri said the company would bring in watches from countries rarely known in India for their watch-making skills like Russia, and largely family-owned worldwide brands that cannot afford star endorsements.

As part of its initiative to stand out from the crowd, the company will create and develop a new category in India -- sports watches.

“Sports watches are worn abroad as a fashion statement; we will try to capture the nascent Indian market with the launch of 20 varieties of premium and luxury sports watch brands,” Sekri explained.

These include watches specially designed for diving and watersports aficionados, sailing, skiing, outdoor sports, adventure and extreme sports, racing, aviation, military and fitness enthusiasts, and can also be worn everyday as a fashion statement.

Chrono will retail its watches under the four broad categories of premium (Rs 5,000-Rs 15,000); affordable luxury (Rs 15,000-Rs 50,000); accessible luxury (Rs 50,000-Rs 1  lakh) and aspirational luxury (Rs 1 lakh-Rs 5 lakh).