Crowdfunding bid to Kickstart a new watch
A BIRMINGHAM entrepreneur has launched his latest crowdfunding campaign to support production of his new watch.
Dennis Chen, who studied arts and visual communication at Birmingham City University before graduating with a masters in 2014, is behind watch brand Blenheim London.
Launched last year, the Birmingham-based firm currently has three types of watches aimed at different price ranges and this latest bid will fund the middle of the trio – called the Chronomaster Pilot.
Mr Chen, who is originally from China, has already surpassed his target of £4,000 by more than £11,000 on the Kickstarter website.
Funding from the campaign will support production of the watch and pay for advertising and marketing.
He told the Post : “I started the business after leaving BCU and it’s now going really well. I have customers in Denmark and Germany but the US is my main market and in May we launched on Amazon so we can now sell across Europe as they ship to customers on my behalf which can save on overheads.
“I run the business as e-commerce and the parts are manufactured in Switzerland, Japan and China.
“I have already run two successful campaigns on Kickstarter to support the lower and upper end versions of my watch so now I’m focusing on the middle of the range.
“I also plan to launch two more crowdfunding campaigns in the near future to create another watch for the lower end and also a diver’s watch with smart technology.”
He is also hoping to have his watches in stores such as John Lewis and Selfridges before next Valentine’s Day.