Vivatech 2025: Is Europe lagging behind?
From the show
This week, we take you to Vivatech in Paris. The event bills itself as the biggest tech and startup event in Europe. The tech industry is the driving force for growth in the world economy, but Europe only represents a small share of it. Is Europe lagging behind in the race for artificial intelligence? Why are there no tech giants the size of Google or Apple on the continent? Our Business Editor Charles Pellegrin meets with French and German startups, as well as with Estonian Energy and Environment Minister Andres Sutt, who was previously the country's minister for entrepreneurship and innovation.
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FNW: Your company is supported by several celebrities such as musicians John Legend and J Balvin and actor Kevin Hart; how did you convince them to invest in your company? Q.W.: All of our investors are passionate about watches and have felt the frustrations of trying to track something down on the secondary market, only to be concerned about authenticity. We genuinely want to build the best watch buying experience out there– so, as collectors themselves, the investors have all been excited to help us get there. FNW: As with sneakers or luxury bags, what authentication system do you use? Q.W.: Our approach was shaped by thinking about what I wanted as a buyer before Bezel existed. I looked at platforms like StockX and GOAT in the sneaker space, where trust is built by the brand itself—not left to individual sellers. Today, our in-house team includes expert watchmakers who physically inspect the mechanics of each piece, as well as authentication specialists with thousands of hours cataloging watches at major auction houses. They know what a bracelet should feel like, how vintage papers should age—even how they should smell. Our in-house team has all of the cutting edge tools required to run the most thorough authentication check in the industry. Every watch goes through a two-step authentication process. We review all photos and details before a listing goes live, and if a watch isn't factory-original, we don't list it—simple as that. Once a watch sells, it's overnighted to us for the true, hands-on authentication check covering condition, authenticity, and performance before it ever reaches the buyer. We also run every watch through a loss registry to ensure that it was never reported stolen. FNW: How many watches do you reject each year? Q.W: In 2024, we rejected a staggering 29% of watches attempted to be sold on the platform with an average order value of $10K. On other competitive marketplaces, those problem watches would have gone unchecked and simply become the buyer's (expensive) problem. FNW: How many brands do you represent today, and which are the most attractive brands/trends today? Q.W: We have over 120 different brands available for sale on the platform. The goal is to offer a wide range of luxury watches for varying buyer preferences and price points. Rolex represents ⅓ of our sales, followed by Omega, Tudor, Cartier, and other top brands. FNW: How do you explain the success of Bezel? What differentiates you from other players in the luxury watch market today? Q.W.: I think it all comes down to trust and access. From the beginning, we've been obsessed with building the most trustworthy product in the industry. This centers around authenticating everything in house, to guarantee every buyer is getting exactly what they expect, but it also presents itself in the relationship buyers develop with our in-house concierge and the experience they have interacting with our app. The goal is to focus on polishing every touch point and ultimately, to build the experience we wished we had as collectors before we started the business. Once we establish trust from our clients, it comes down to access. We have north of $800M in watches listed on the platform right now and a concierge team capable of tracking down anything on the market. If you want it, we can find it for you. FNW: Is it important for you to offer auctions without a buyer's premium, unlike traditional sites? Q.W: Auctions have been an exciting tool for both our buyers and our sellers. For our buyers, it's a fun way to discover watches in daily drops and offers access to attractive prices. For our sellers, it offers 7-day liquidity at the true market rate, something critical for folks that may need to get paid fast. Regarding the lack of buyers premium, we just felt like the current standard was crazy. Paying over 20% at a traditional auction house felt like it priced out so many prospective buyers, so we opted to charge no buyer's premium and make the product accessible to the new generation of collectors. FNW: What is the profile of the consumers who buy these luxury watches today? And what is the average purchase price for a consumer on your eshop? Q.W: We have a wide range of consumers on the platform. The demographic skews primarily millennial and Gen Z, with Gen Z accounting for our highest average order value sales. We set out to build the best platform to buy your first watch, with the bet that the industry tends to forget about first-time buyers, but now we're at a point where we're serving the full spectrum of buyers. Our average order value is $10K– the cheapest watch we sold this year was $750 and the most expensive was well over $1M. FNW: How is the global luxury watch market performing today? Q.W: It's certainly been an interesting summer with the recently announced 39% tariffs on Swiss goods. We're US only currently, so it's both been a massive growth driver, given all our sellers' inventory is already in the US, and an area of uncertainty as the secondary market prices feel a bit more volatile than usual. It's also driven a lot of new folks to the secondary market. We've seen a lot of buyers that were sitting on waitlists with primary brands just opt to buy the watch immediately on Bezel now that there's speculation that retail prices will continue to increase. FNW: And how do you want to expand your company? Q.W: Regarding expansion, were launching a number of new features that extend our ability to provide value for collectors and yes, we're also very interested in taking the business into international markets. We just want to be very intentional about going too wide too fast, so we can keep our quality bar consistent. FNW: Are physical stores a possible evolution for your platform? Q.W: We're certainly interested in the advantages of a physical store from a brand building perspective, but it's not something we're immediately focused on. Our focus has been learning from the best in-store experiences and then doing our best to translate them into a digital product. I think we have a lot more room to grow on the digital side still. That being said, we love to do brick and mortar activations with other brands like Equinox, Soho House, etc. FNW: What type of watch are you wearing today? Q.W: I'm wearing a Rolex Submariner Hulk today. It's actually the watch that really made me want to start Bezel, it's the only watch that forever has a place in my collection, and it's still one of my favorites regardless how big my collection gets. FNW: Last question: what does the word "Bezel" mean? Q.W: A bezel is the ring that surrounds the watch crystal and oftentimes is distinguished with useful numbers, striking colors, or specific materials. On a dive watch, for example, the bezel is rotatable with enumerated sections of an hour, so it can be used as a timer. We called the business Bezel because, similar to how a bezel is the layer between the watch and the world, we're a marketplace connecting consumers to the watch world.
