Now 27 years old, thanks to his entrepreneurial spirit and the help of Saverio, an acquaintance who gives him a loan without a guarantee, he is able to open his first watchmaker’s shop and lab in the beating heart of the city, in Via Andrea da Bari. Here, he sets up two machines for printing and assembling dials.
From his creative mind and his capable hands the first VeriWatch-branded watches are born.

The business expands, manufacturing is increased and it becomes necessary to rely on contractors in Switzerland. On August 25th 1961 Artemio Ferrario of the Patents Office in Rome approves the registration request presented by Giulio Capezzuto for the VeriWatch brand. Through the years, business thrives with the manufacturing of alarm clocks and watches, including stopwatches and divers. The latter, Swiss Made, were distinguished by their high quality and technical standard (screw-shaped crown, tritium pointers, water resistance up to 200 meters).

The shop moves to Via Roberto da Bari.

The 70’s are golden years for divers. These are the boom years for VeriWatch, thanks to their cooperation with Squale too, which contributes to the consecration of the Italian brand as a reference point for the diver world. The VeriWatch watches, a niche for diving, are distinguished by their craftsmanship, their refined design and their technical characteristics.

Octopus is born, the core model of the VeriWatch brand: one of the very few medical divers with a pulsometer which would go on to establish itself as an icon in the divers’ scene of that era. The name was chosen by his son Pasquale, born in 1952, as a tribute to the octopus, the king of Bari’s Adriatic Sea. The octopus character, a solitary and territorial animal with a surprising IQ, is rich in symbolic meaning, including the transformation and flexibility. The Octopus caption, with a particular design recalling its tentacles, is reproduced on the dial beside the VeriWatch brand name. During those years, in addition to the Squale cooperation, three more models are introduced, all dedicated to the sea: Delfino, Narvalo and Substar.

Manufacturing continues until the 90’s when the crisis of the watchmaking field paired with mass production eventually brings Capezzuto’s business to a halt.

Fueled by a strong desire to rediscover iconic models from the past, bringing them back with a new appearance and using modern technology, Alessandro Leali, an entrepreneur from Brescia born in 1978 and a vintage divers watch enthusiast, starts researching in order to make his “diver project” come alive.

Alessandro Leali discovers the all-Italian history of VeriWatch and falls in love with it, so much so that he gets in touch with the family of Giulio Capezzuto himself (who died in 2008) and takes over the brand’s management, with the aim of bringing it back to its former glory, giving voice and value to a piece of history that lasted over 35 years.

Alessandro Leali aims to rebrand the historic trademark from Puglia, and thanks to outstanding attention to detail and quality, he successfully carries out the project, producing the first two samples of Octopus watches, with and without dates. This is where the brand’s history takes off again.

March 31, 2023
VeriWatch Octopus is finally ready to come back, breathing new life into a significant chapter of Italian watchmaking history.