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

Today, the global counterfeit goods market has exceeded $2 trillion, and anti-counterfeiting technology always seems to be playing catch-up with 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 industry chain. For example, the empty packaging of some high-end liquor can be recycled at a value up to 30% of the 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 transformation. Recently, an anti-counterfeiting invention patent that was authorized in just 7 months has come into the public eye. It presents a seemingly simple yet potentially revolutionary idea: using the random wrinkles on the shrink film naturally formed on product packaging to build an ultra-low-cost physical anti-counterfeiting system that is "print-free, non-replicable, and single-use".

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 also be no two shrink film packages with exactly the same wrinkle patterns on the production line.

This forms the basis of the technological closed-loop: in the production process, an industrial camera automatically captures the final form of the shrink film of each product, recording its unique wrinkle and pattern features. The system then generates a unique "form digital ID" and stores it securely 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 and return the authenticity result within seconds. Users can also conduct a preliminary tactile verification by touching the embossed pattern on the packaging.

"We are no longer manufacturing anti-counterfeiting labels. Instead, we are identifying and utilizing the existing physical features of the product," the invention team explained the difference in their approach. "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 - 0.03 yuan per product. At the same time, on the production line, all that is needed is to print an embossed pattern on the existing shrink film and install a visual capture terminal, without the need for large-scale transformation.

Since the shrink film is damaged once the product is used and its form cannot be restored without damage, this technology also physically eliminates the possibility of the packaging being reused. For consumers, the verification method is simplified to "touch and snap", significantly lowering the participation threshold.

It's not just an anti-counterfeiting solution, but also the prototype of a "trust infrastructure"

In terms of competitive positioning, the team does not see itself as just another anti-counterfeiting label supplier. Instead, they aim to build a "physical anti-counterfeiting infrastructure". Compared with traditional anti-counterfeiting label suppliers, the core difference lies in providing non-replicability based on random physical features; compared with blockchain anti-counterfeiting platforms, it fills the gap that the latter fails to address, which is the replication of physical carriers; and compared with high-end texture anti-counterfeiting and other technologies, it attempts to strike a balance between 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 from anti-counterfeiting special films in cooperation with film manufacturers. Taking only the domestic liquor, cosmetics, health products and other industries as an example, the annual packaging demand exceeds 100 billion pieces. Even with partial market penetration and low service fees per product, the potential market size is considerable.

It is reported that this technology has completed closed-loop verification and obtained an invention patent (Patent No.: ZL202510191795.7). Currently, it is undergoing 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 product marketing.

Financing and next steps

Film trace anti-counterfeiting has officially launched an angel/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 operations. The company expects to launch the SaaS platform within a year, implement a multi-million anti-counterfeiting processing case in the liquor industry, and gradually expand to industries such as cosmetics and health products.

"We are not just providing an anti-counterfeiting system. We are also trying to promote a change in the trust mechanism - from digital encryption that can be breached to simple and robust physical randomness," said the project founder. In the current situation where counterfeits continue to erode the trust of brands and consumers, this kind of anti-counterfeiting idea based on natural chaos may be bringing a new perspective to the industry.