Shandong Dingxiang is seeking angel-round financing by using the “natural fingerprint” of shrink film for anti-counterfeiting purposes.

Today, when the global counterfeit goods market has exceeded $2 trillion, anti-counterfeiting technology always seems to be chasing the footsteps of counterfeiters. Traditional QR codes and laser labels are easily replicated, while high-end physical anti-counterfeiting packaging has become a hot commodity in the recycling and counterfeiting industrial chain. For example, the empty packaging of some high-end liquor can even be recycled at 30% of its original price. More realistically, over 80% of genuine product packaging enters the second-hand market without being verified by consumers. The anti-counterfeiting system often exists in name only.

The market may be in need of a fundamental change. Recently, an anti-counterfeiting invention patent that was authorized in just 7 months has come into the public eye. It proposes a seemingly simple but potentially revolutionary idea: using the random wrinkles on the shrink film naturally formed on product packaging to build a "zero-printing, zero-replication, one-time use" ultra-low-cost physical anti-counterfeiting system.

From replicable labels to non-clonable "film traces"

This technology is called "film trace anti-counterfeiting". Its core principle is based on a physical fact: when a heat-shrinkable film with an internally printed embossed pattern is heated and shrinks, the positional relationship between the wrinkles formed on the film surface and the pattern is completely random and unpredictable. Just as there are no two identical snowflakes in the world, there will be no two shrink film packages with exactly the same wrinkle patterns on the production line.

This forms the basis of the technical closed-loop: in the production process, an industrial camera automatically captures the final form of each product's shrink film, recording its unique wrinkle and pattern features; the system then generates a unique "form digital ID" and stores it encrypted on the blockchain platform to ensure the data cannot be tampered with; when consumers verify the product, they only need to take a photo of the product with their mobile phone app, and the system can complete the comparison within seconds and return the authenticity result. Users can also conduct a preliminary tactile verification by touching the embossed pattern on the packaging.

"We no longer create anti-counterfeiting labels, but identify and utilize the existing physical characteristics of the product," the invention team explained the difference in their thinking. "This is a paradigm shift."

No additional cost, no production line transformation: anti-counterfeiting can be lighter and smarter

Compared with traditional anti-counterfeiting solutions, film trace anti-counterfeiting aims to achieve multiple breakthroughs in cost, deployment, and user experience.

The anti-counterfeiting carrier is the shrink film that the product originally uses, which hardly adds any packaging cost. The main expense for enterprises is the SaaS service fee, which the team estimates to be between $0.01 and $0.03 per product. At the same time, on the production line, only an embossed pattern needs to be printed on the existing shrink film, and a visual collection terminal needs to be installed, without large-scale transformation.

Since the shrink film is damaged when the product is used, and the film form cannot be restored without damage, this technology also eliminates the possibility of the packaging being reused from a physical level. For consumers, the verification method is simplified to "touch and take a photo", greatly reducing the participation threshold.

More than just an anti-counterfeiting solution, but also the prototype of a "trust infrastructure"

In terms of competitive positioning, the team does not consider itself just another anti-counterfeiting label supplier, but aims to build a "physical anti-counterfeiting infrastructure". Compared with traditional anti-counterfeiting label suppliers, its core difference lies in the non-replicability based on random physical characteristics; compared with blockchain anti-counterfeiting platforms, it fills the loophole of the physical carrier being replicated that the latter fails to solve; and compared with high-end texture anti-counterfeiting technologies, it tries to balance cost and usability.

In terms of business model, film trace anti-counterfeiting has planned three revenue streams: SaaS service fees charged per product, sales or leasing of industrial vision terminals, and revenue sharing of anti-counterfeiting special films in cooperation with film manufacturers. Taking only domestic industries such as liquor, cosmetics, and health products as an example, the annual packaging demand exceeds 100 billion pieces. Even with partial penetration and low service fees per piece, the potential market size is considerable.

It is reported that this technology has completed the closed-loop verification and obtained the invention patent authorization (Patent No.: ZL202510191795.7). Currently, it is conducting concept verification tests with two leading liquor companies and a listed cosmetics group, and is also discussing cooperation with large shrink film manufacturers. The team members have backgrounds in materials science, machine vision, blockchain, and consumer goods marketing.

Financing and next-step plans

Film trace anti-counterfeiting has officially launched its angel round/Pre-A round of financing, planning to raise 50 million yuan. The funds will be mainly used for product R & D, expansion of benchmark customers, and team operation. The company expects to launch the SaaS platform within a year, implement a case of anti-counterfeiting processing for tens of millions of products in the liquor industry, and gradually expand to industries such as cosmetics and health products.

"We are not just providing an anti-counterfeiting system, but also trying to promote a change in the trust mechanism - from digital encryption that may be breached to simple and reliable physical randomness," said the project founder. In the current situation where counterfeit goods are continuously eroding the trust of brands and consumers, this kind of anti-counterfeiting thinking based on natural chaos may be bringing a new perspective to solve the problem in the industry.