Abraham-Louis Perrelet was born in Neuchâtel in Switzerland and was a renowned Swiss horologist. Perrelet invented a self-winding mechanism in 1770 for pocket watches. Perrelet's watch worked on the same principle as a modern wristwatch, and was designed to wind as the owner walked, using an oscillating weight inside the large watch that moved up and down. The Geneva Society of Arts reported in 1776 that only fifteen minutes of walking was necessary to wind the Perrelet wristwatch sufficiently for eight days, and the following year reported that it was selling well. Perrelet is thus widely acknowledged as the inventor of the basic movement known today as an AUTOMATIC (self-winding) movement.

Since 2007, following the appointment of Marc Bernhardt as CEO of Perrelet, and under his direction the company has released a few highly regarded watches. These include watches with retrograde, jumping hour, and double-rotor complications. Perrelet is today perhaps most well-known for its Turbine watches featuring a spinning rotor visible through the dial side of the watch.