Veritas, a startup founded by former Tesla technical product manager Luci Holland, is expanding its anti-counterfeit chip to products beyond garments. The company's second-generation chip is ready for production and now works on metal surfaces and can be scanned through glass, opening up applications in jewelry, trophies, hard-surface products, and glass objects such as fragrance bottles. The chip generates a secure response with each tap and includes a tamper-detection wire, which Holland says makes it harder to defeat than copied QR codes or static NFC links.
This week, Veritas announced a partnership with ATHLOS, a women's track-and-field competition founded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, who is also an investor. All 18 championship crowns will include Veritas chips for verification. The company also embedded a chip into a pair of LeBron James' first Nike shoes, reimagined by artist Adam Port, so tapping a phone to the shoe brings up its history and story.
Since raising $1.75 million in pre-seed funding led by Ohanian's Seven Seven Six, with participation from DoorDash co-founder Stanley Tang and others, Veritas has shipped an iOS app for consumers and a brand portal for managing product records. Through these tools, brands can offer owner experiences such as clubs, event check-ins, and segmented early access to product drops. The company competed in this year's TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield.