Xeric is an American independent watch brand based in Provo, Utah, which officially launched in November 2013 with a Kickstarter campaign for its first model, the Xeriscope. Its story starts well before that. In 1998 Mitch Greenblatt received his first watch, began collecting unusual vintage pieces and writing about them, and became a well-known voice on modern horology; when Vogue wanted to cover the rare watches from the 1960s and 70s he was reselling, he needed a name to give them, and Watchismo.com was born. Later joined by his brother Andrew, he turned Watchismo into an online business offering unusual timepieces from around the world — and, seeing a gap for mechanical watches that were both unusual and affordable, the two brought in Danny Hunsaker, who had experience in watch manufacturing, and created Xeric in 2013. The brand is still operated today by Watchismo, LLC.

The brand's whole catalogue turns on one idea: rethinking how a watch shows the time. Wandering hours run through the Triptych II Automatic, a 39 mm piece with a guilloché-stamped dial, and the Vendetta II; retrogrades through the Retroscope Jump Hour Retrograde, its bestseller, the Timeline Retrograde and the Volta Double Retrograde; and alongside them sit the Planetarium GMT, the Invertor+, the Omnigraph, NASA-licensed models such as the Trappist-1, and the Sector Retrograde made with Worn & Wound in 300 pieces per colour. Watches are priced from about $250 to $2,495, most of them around $550.

Crowdfunding has stayed at the heart of how Xeric works: the brand has since run 25 successful Kickstarter campaigns, including the most funded mechanical timepiece in the platform's history.