Finnish Wearables Startup Taps Crowd

    Finnish startup PreCious Watches has launched crowdfunding campaign aiming to raise 200,000 euros during this month to finance development of its not-too-smart watches and other wearables.

    The company aims to later offers stylish, unique and high-quality digital fashion watches for fashionistas and style-savvy young females. The watches, priced at 200-300 euros, would be positioned between analogue and smartwatches.

    Last summer Marcus Mangs, who has had a long career at smartwatch firm Suunto, was reading how Filip Tysander created $200 million Daniel Wellington watchbrand from nothing. “That gave me the spark,” Mangs told ArcticStartup in an interview.

    The product will be slimmer than smartwatches on the market, it will have longer battery life and it will most likely use a lot of ceramics in the manufacturing.

    “We are are focusing on the design and the case. Smartwatches tend to have too much in them, e-mail on your watch is not for vast majority of the consumers,” Mangs said.

    The white-label entrance to the market would enable the company to reach cash flow much earlier than in the case it would start from creating its own consumer brand. It has first letters of intent from some Finnish fashion houses already at hands.

    Also deals with subcontractors and 89,000 euros state support is in place – allowing the firm start work on the prototype as soon as the crowdfunding campaign succeeds.

    Offering shares worth 200,000 euros it is selling 20% stake in the firm valued at 1 million euros. It has raised more than 20% of the target so far. “We have the knowhow to bring digital fashion watches to the market, and we offer a platform for any watch brand to go digital. This is a big opportunity, digital watch market will grow exponentially over the coming years,” Mangs said.