Richard was awarded a PhD in Physics by King’s College London in 1992 for his work in optical computing and artificial intelligence.

In 1992, he founded Right Information Systems, a neural net forecasting software company which he sold to Cognos Inc (now part of IBM) in 1997. He then worked as a postdoc at the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art at Oxford University, developing optically stimulated luminescence methods for dating the age of ancient buildings.

In 2001, Hoptroff created Flexipanel Ltd, a Bluetooth module company dedicated to supplying Bluetooth modules to the electronics industry.

In 2010, he founded the Hoptroff London watchmaking company to develop smart, hyper-accurate watch movements to create a new watch brand.

In 2012, Hoptroff London added Bluetooth Low Energy to their movements, allowing them to be configured from a mobile phone, and allowing them to display internet-connected information.

On 27th April 2013, the first commercial atomic timepiece for general sale to the public, a pocket watch with multiple complications (http://www.hoptroff.com/collections/atomic-timepieces/products/no-10) started ticking in Hoptroff London’s workshop, establishing atomics as a new commercial category of time regulation devices in clocks and watches, alongside the pendulum, the balance spring and the quartz crystal.

In 2015, Hoptroff London succeeded in being the first watchmaker to achieve better than one second per year accuracy in its quartz watches and we introduced the world’s first range of personal atomic wristwatches (http://www.hoptroff.com/collections/atomic-timepieces)