The former Tesla product manager wants to make luxury goods impossible, starting with a chip

The problem of counterfeit goods cuts two ways. Luxury brands lose more than $30 billion a year to counterfeit products, while consumers in the booming $210 billion second-hand market have no reliable way to ensure that what they’re buying is authentic. Veritas wants to solve both problems with a solution that combines custom hardware and software.

The startup says it has developed a “hack-proof” chip that can be bypassed by devices like Flipper Zero, a widely available hacking tool that can be used to disrupt wireless systems. These chips are linked with digital certificates to ensure the authenticity of the products.

Veritas founder Luci Holland has experienced life as a professional and artist. He has worked in a variety of art forms, including mixed media painting and metal sculpture. He also worked at Tesla as a technology product manager and held several business development, social development, and product management roles in technology and venture capital companies.

Holland noted that traditionally, luxury goods makers use various symbols or visual symbols to authenticate their products. However, due to the growing demand for these goods, counterfeiters have learned to make good copies of these marks and fake certificates of high quality. These goods are often called “superfakes.”

Holland revealed that he has spoken to maisons – the founders of luxury fashion houses – who say some of their sites have to stop authenticating goods because fakes are becoming too believable to be seen. He said that by taking his knowledge of technology and art, he wants to solve this problem.

“For me, as someone who has a history of being a designer and who also has knowledge in technology, I saw this problem and thought of different ways to solve it. I think that the really new thing is that we used and combined features from both hardware and software to create this solution that helps protect products in this way of transferring information,” he said.

He added: “When I think about counterfeiting and I think about historic and famous products, “most of these products are more than 100, 150 years old. These products deserve the most advanced protection to protect these designs.”

Veritas worked with different designers to create a chip that minimally disrupts the product creation process. The chip is the size of a small gem and can be easily inserted even after the product is manufactured without compromising its integrity. The chip includes NFC, or Near Field Communication — the same short-range wireless technology used in contactless payments. This means you can tap your smartphone on the item to verify its authenticity.

Holland said that for safety purposes, the startup built a custom coil and bridge structure. If someone tries to tamper with the product, the chip goes to sleep and hides the codes related to the product. On the software side, product information is linked to the Veritas endpoint, which monitors scanning behavior to prevent fraud. The company is also creating a blockchain-based digital clone of the product for digital art gallery exhibitions or metaverse activities.

The company didn’t disclose who it’s working with, but it said companies can use its software to get information about all products released, add team members to manage things, and add product information and a product story — information that can also be used to communicate with their community. The startup said some partners use this to engage customers with special invitations or early access to new products.

Although the counterfeit market is huge, Holland thinks the market still needs education about why it needs strong technical solutions.

“It’s shocking to see that some of the off-the-shelf solutions, like the NFC chips used by brands, are actually very vulnerable and can be easily bypassed. This is one thing that many people don’t know, and we want to educate the ecosystem to use safer solutions,” said Holland.

Veritas said it raised $1.75 million in pre-seed funding led by Seven Seven Six, as well as DoorDash founder Stanley Tang, skincare brand Reys founder Gloria Zhu, and former TechCrunch editor Josh Constine. The company plans to use the funding to expand its two-person team.

Alexis Ohanian of Seven Seven Six said he was impressed by Holland’s combination of design taste and technology. He thinks that brands know that counterfeit goods are a problem and are always looking for strong solutions.

“It’s really an arms race [against fake goods makers]but we tend to fight those and we always win in technology – and luxury brands need all the help they can get,” said Ohanian.