Web3 Swiss-based, Authena – World Leader in NFT Authentication of Products

Transcript

Nick Abrahams:

Ladies and gentlemen, today we are going to be talking about authenticating product and it’s a very difficult issue and counter feeding causes a lot of problems for a lot of companies worldwide. And I am delighted to have really one of the world leaders in helping organizations really to protect authenticity and it’s representatives from the company, Authena, and I’m delighted to welcome Rossana Rogers, chief marketing officer at Authena. Welcome Rossana.

Rossana Rogers:

Thank you for having us. Thank you.

Nick Abrahams:

And also Ivan Miljkovic, who is the business development manager in the sporting category with Authena. Ivan, welcome to the show.

Ivan Miljkovic:

Thank you. Thank you so lot, so much for the invitation.

Nick Abrahams:

Terrific. So why don’t we get started. Maybe Rossana, can you tell us a little bit more about Authena and perhaps your role there, but what is Authena? What’s the mission statement?

Rossana Rogers:

Yeah, Authena, in Authena we make the world a more connected, transparent, and authentic place by really putting together all the different data point across the value chain. And what we do is really selling authenticity and traceability as a service and infrastructure free. And in this space is what we see from our customer is very valuable because all the devices are advancing so fast that what really the customer wants is what comes out of it, which is really the new data that we generate with, at product level and without requesting any investment on infrastructure as it is for example with the FID. And this is very valuable because of what we have seen during COVID, the way that our supply chain were defined was so intertwined and so complex that now everybody wants to step up, but in order to step up you to really understand how it is and how you can improve it. So this is what we do at product level.

Nick Abrahams:

Fantastic. I love it. Authenticity as a service, it’s a wonderful idea. And Ivan, now I think you are the first Olympic sportsman who we’ve had on the podcast. So you have a story background in sports. We’d love to hear a little bit about that and also about your role at Authena, please.

Ivan Miljkovic:

Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for the introduction about my sports background. So yes, I’m a former professional volleyball athlete, three times Olympic games participant and also Sydney actually in your place, Sydney 2000 indoor volleyball.

Nick Abrahams:

Oh fantastic. Great.

Ivan Miljkovic:

Gold medal winner, so-

Nick Abrahams:

Congratulations, it’s amazing.

Ivan Miljkovic:

Thank you. Thank you. So I used to play for my home country more than 250 times for the national team and I was also a professional volleyball player in different countries, in Italy, in Greece, in Turkey, in Qatar for more than 17 years. So after the career I have a, let’s say an educational background in economy and finance and I also did the UEFA football master in sports Governance and Management. As you can imagine, as I already said, I have quite a strong experience in sports, in sport governance, in finance. And also I’m really interested in technology, in digital transformation, in web three blockchain and also in FinTech. And right now in Authena, I’m responsible as a business development manager for the sport vertical and I’m also responsible for the partnership development, new ideas with the different sports stakeholders, fun experience, monetization, onsite operations, and then implementation. And of course being a part of this company also working closely with the other Authena verticals on authenticity and traceability using my previous experience from, as you can imagine, from various sectors, not only from sports.

Nick Abrahams:

That’s fantastic, it gives you such extraordinary credibility, well across a variety of sectors, but of course in sports. Can I just ask a question, after that many years on the court, how are the knees Ivan? Are they still okay?

Ivan Miljkovic:

I can just say that, I can say that I’m one of a few professional athletes that after so many years of the career when I wake up in the morning, I have no pain.

Nick Abrahams:

Oh my lord, fantastic.

Ivan Miljkovic:

And the thing is that during my career I’ve never had any serious operation or any serious injuries, so let’s say I’m quite lucky or it might not be only the luck, it might be something else, but we can discuss also about that.

Nick Abrahams:

Maybe that’s another podcast. Ivan’s guide to being injury free while playing elite sport for two decades. Well thanks Ivan, that’s great. Great to have that background. So maybe back to Rossana. So Authena operates across a variety of industries. Be interested in sort how that solution, which industries to the extent you talk about some customers and what is the extent of the counterfeiting issue that they are facing? Is it different for different industries? What’s the pain point for them?

Rossana Rogers:

So according to the OECD, we know that there are 200 billion lost annually by pharmaceutical company due to counterfeiting and diversion. More than 50% or 51% of these crimes are associated to product diversion. And especially when you are in pharma, and this is why we believe really that what we are doing makes really an impact in the world. Protecting the safety of the drug distribution and the supply chain really is protecting human life.

So what we have seen also, again with COVID, with increasing pace of e-commerce, this number have been going up and there are fake drugs that cause more than 1 million victim annually according to the World Health Organization. So really for this specific problem, we started collaborating already more than one year ago with, we cannot disclose the name, but it’s one of the biggest brand, pharmaceutical brand based in Switzerland, in Basel to develop Authena L1ve. Authena L1ve is an active sensor that has multiple sensor actually really can monitor in real time each product across countries and distribution channel and really detect while it is happening. And this is really first world solution while it is happening, the diversion.

Nick Abrahams:

It’s amazing. But in real time the pharmaceutical company can see, track where those goods are [inaudible 00:08:18], it’s fantastic.

Rossana Rogers:

And then you combine Authena L1ve with Authena Shield, which is our first solution where we have, let’s say a passive device an NFC attached to it, you can see that, you really take all the data about the providence and the distribution towards the patient, towards the end consumer, because being, let’s say a cross vertical, one of the things that we can give to our customer is really cutting solution that are so advanced because developed for pharma, but they become really very cost effective on premium fragrance, in say, in cosmetics, premium spirit where the diversion and the counterfeit is still affecting the life of people. And with Authena L1ve, so Authena L1ve is to track all the provenance and then with Authena Shield we push all the data towards the final consumer because with a simple smartphone, you tap on the product, you see if the product is still intact or if it has been tampered with it or you can understand all from where it’s coming and all the journey that it’s made.

So also here, what we give to the brands is that all their effort in sustainability, they can really turn in value because they can be communicated to the consumer according to where they are in their journey. Everybody decide what are the relevant data points that have been detected, that have been tracked, that needs to be communicated to the consumer. And the last, let’s say offering that we developed last year when there was this big hype of the energy is Authena M3ta. With Authena M3ta really we wanted to see the development of web treat and metaverse in a much more, let’s say secure way for us for the consumer. So this is a new internet where the ownership, really the authenticity should be born in should be really instilled from the inception. And we started also to collaborate with the Metaverse standard forum as a principle, let’s say member because we believe that yes, the NFT that we have seen in the last year, it has been a naturally a big cultural trend.

But being the space of authenticity, traceability, we see a big potential of really starting from delivering an authenticity proof and ownership proof to the consumer and attach it intimately, the physical object, the product and the digital one. So this is Authena M3ta where we have created this secure link between the physical and the digital twin of the product. And as later I’m sure you will ask, and we will tell you, this open a new world of possibility because starting to… Given to the consumer the possibility to verify the authenticity and assigning ownership of what they buy, then this open a completely new game because the secondary market that comes afterwards can be much more robust, reliable.

The authors around the, let’s say the owning the IP rights, artists or you will see later in different use case that we can share, they can really shape what they want to do with this. Some of them, they decided to really give a new experience to their fans and I’m sure that Ivan will describe this much more in the detail, but others, they want to give a different experience of their brand, their product, we will study more.

Nick Abrahams:

Fantastic. So at the forefront of technology, that combination of the digital and the physical as we talked about the figital world and using NFT technology to actually validate the authenticity of a physical object and I guess vice versa. So I mean I guess it’s a big announcement recently, Ivan, your collaboration with Adidas and a basketball team Red Star or with world’s first sports figital collection authenticated at sort. So could you tell us a little bit more about how that worked?

Ivan Miljkovic:

Well the idea actually in a sport vertical started with, everyone knows about the Diego Maradona’s shirt from the ’86 World Cup and the famous goals and the value of that shirt, that was almost six, seven, 8 million sold at the end. And all the rumors around it, whether it’s original or it’s not original. And then we have the latest happenings from the [inaudible 00:14:06] piece where, I don’t know if you know that one of the jerseys that Michael Jordan won one of the championships, baking the ’90s was also sold for a lot of million of dollars. But the idea behind this, how can you be 100% sure that this is an original one?

How can you be sure that this is the authentic one? Because if you take a look, then you have to believe to the experts, to the companies that really can authenticate that object. And then from the other side, the idea that came to our mind is why don’t we create a possibility that we are going to have a memorabilia before the event. So we create the value of the memorabilia before it even becomes memorabilia. Because as you know, when a player plays a game, he scores some goals, he becomes famous because of something, the value of the memorabilia starts after the game.

So we said, “Why don’t we try to do something for sport items and give them the possibility that one day they’re going to become really famous?” Let’s say the tennis racket of Novakovic. Let’s say the shoes of some basketball player. Then let’s say football ball that is going to be used for the finals of some very big competition because we have people all over the world that collect memorabilia, they like them, but also from the research from the FBI in the United States, it says that almost 80% of the sports memorabilia, sport cards and different items around the world are fake.

Nick Abrahams:

80%.

Ivan Miljkovic:

80%, even more.

Nick Abrahams:

Okay, that’s an enormous business.

Ivan Miljkovic:

So that’s a really, really big business amounting to billions of euros, dollars, franks, whatever. So we said, “Okay, then we have the Authena’s technology and the products that we already.” Have talking about the NFTs, talking about the NFC tags, talking about the metaverse and everything. And we said, “Okay, let’s do something and let’s create something digital.” Digital means a two-way connection between the physical and the digital. It can be digital and then physical, but it can also be first physical and then digital. This is how Authena uses different products like Authena Shield and Authena M3ta to create this kind of a connection, a bridge between these two, let’s say objects, these two products. So the idea… We will talk about the Red Star basketball club right now, but they are only one of a few teams and one of a few, let’s say even athletes or IP owners who we are going to deal with in the future trying to create what I’m going to tell you right now.

So the idea came like this, we are going to use the NFT as a digital certificate of authentication and ownership. We are going to provide these NFTs to the fans, to the customers, or let’s say to the fans, creating them an additional utility and creating a new channel of marketing, of communication between the fans and the club or the athlete in the future. So we said, “Okay, but what’s the value of the jersey?” Because what we are going to do as an NFT is the jersey that actually represent the original game jerseys that the players are going to wear during a certain period of time or during a certain game. So it’s going to be the original jersey and we said it cannot be the same price, it has to be a higher price because it’s authentic, because it was worn because maybe one day tomorrow certain benefits will be connected with a shirt.

The player with a shirt is going to sign you the shirt, the player is going to deliver you the shirt. And then we said, “Okay, let’s create an NFT as a form of a digital certificate of ownership. Let’s do the auction process.” What we are currently doing and let’s see what’s going to be the value, put it on a market and the market is going to decide the value of this digital item. In this case only the NFT. Once the NFTs are sold, so you become the owner and on blockchain your name is going to be, let’s say minted is going to be put there. So you are the owner of the NFT, but, you have to wait until the certain moment when you are going to receive the shirt. It might be one month, it might be two months, it might be five months.

Nick Abrahams:

You bought the NFT first and that gives you an-

Ivan Miljkovic:

You buy an NFT. From the moment you become the owner of the NFT, you also start to receive the benefits that the club is going to give to these people who are the owners of the NFTs. So they are kind of a very, very important person. They get certain benefits, they can claim them, or in the meantime you can resell your NFT and somebody else is going to get these perks or these benefits. Then as the ultimate benefit you are going to receive on a certain date, you’re going to receive a physical object signed, in the case of the Red Star signed by the player on a special event for the special people inside the gym at the end of the game.

The NFC technology, near field communication technology is helping us install the authenticity on a physical object saying that the serial number that’s on the physical object is the same one as you have it on the NFT, so you are 100% sure that this object is authentic, so you cannot change it.

We’re talking about the game jerseys right now, but we can talk about, as I said before, tennis shoes. We can talk about the tennis rackets, we can talk about the balls, we can talk about the boxing gloves. We can talk about different kind of things. And it’s not only about the memorabilia that we are dealing with here in Authena Sports, it’s also about a different kind of a, for example, 100 pieces of a limited replicas of certain sports items. So you are going to say, “Okay, I’m a famous football player, I’m the owner of my IP rights and I want to create 100 special edition replica shirts of what I wear during the game. I want to give to my fans something special. All of them I want to invite for a dinner, all of them, I want to give them a special signature. Also I can create a personalized video.” So it’s all about the communication, creating communication with the fans and then also creating utility for the fans. It’s not like I just have an NFT, it’s about the monkeys, it’s about, I don’t know, different kind of things.

Nick Abrahams:

It’s about the monkeys.

Ivan Miljkovic:

And then one day what I’m going to do with them? So you say I have them. Why? Because it’s a hype. Perfect, they give a lot of money hoping that I’m going to resell them, said yes, you can resell them, but in Authena solution there is one physical object and there is one digital object, they go together. So this the real value.

Nick Abrahams:

Oh it’s fantastic. And with the Red Star project. So where’s that? I mean I see there the digital home kit is on open sea at the moment. Has it started selling or what’s the process?

Ivan Miljkovic:

Let’s say that we are, the first edition was almost sold instantly.

Nick Abrahams:

Oh really? Wow. Okay.

Ivan Miljkovic:

So because the idea of the Red Star basketball club, I just want to say that they’re one of the biggest brands in the Bulkan region and Europe, right? Because they are part of the Multisport society. The most famous one is the football, but they also have a different sports there. So they were targeting the larger community outside of their home country.

Nick Abrahams:

I see.

Ivan Miljkovic:

So they were targeting the whole world and because of the open sea as one of the most important markets for the NFTs and of course with a large community of funds all around the world, they say we want to connect and attract as many as we can, people all around the world.

Nick Abrahams:

Great. Well it sounds like it’s gone incredibly well selling out most immediately. That’s fantastic Ivan, thank you. And I guess that Rossana back to you, so the NFT solution, you’ve obviously got Authena L1ve, Authena Shield and then Authena M3ta, so it’s the Authena M3ta that is the NFT solution. And is that, we’ve obviously heard from Ivan how that’s been rolled out in the sporting context. Are there other industries that you think that can be used in?

Rossana Rogers:

Yeah, we have also other customers, so completely different, they touched different industries, in the whiskey. We have a collection that now a limited collection of Säntis Malt, [inaudible 00:24:31] 60 founders anniversary. I will give you the link also of this collection so that you can see while I describe it. So this differently from the sport and the Red Star case that Ivan was just sharing, started as a physical first collection. There was this beautiful whiskey bottle, only 60 bottles. And associated with that, the owner wanted really to celebrate this anniversary and wanted to show to the old world the different location in a [inaudible 00:25:16] where the different grains that are used for producing this whiskey are picked. And so he commissioned this canva with all the season, 60 different frames and he decided that he wanted to associate each one of this frame to an NFT to be given to the owner of the physical bottle.

But this is just the beginning of the story. He wanted to give, first of all, prove of authenticity because part of his collection is going to Asia and to China. So he wanted to be sure that it could really secure the authenticity and that the bottle was temper proof during the distribution. And he wanted to start opening up really Swiss, it’s quite rare, it’s not like the Scottish whiskey, but it’s really something where all the Alps and the natural setting comes into the picture. And he has big plans so that there are some communication that is coming out in the next days and weeks where he really wants to start using the NFT to give new experience about his whiskey. And another example we had is in the world of furniture, as you know the Metaverse is also this one, where we are in Zoom.

Nick Abrahams:

Yes. Yeah, yeah. Now it’s a very broad description.

Rossana Rogers:

And a lot that is going on with the different, let’s say tech giant Microsoft and Meta. They are investing a lot also to developing environment, really offices, homes. And so we had the very interesting project with another Swiss brand, USM, they produce customized furniture, and they were using this pink collection, pink true collection, true pink, sorry. I give you also the link of this one. They sold it again as a physical first and they wanted to start really experimenting. What does it mean to also give not only the authenticity naturally the basic of utility that you can have when you collaborate with Authena is always the authentic secure authenticity and ownership.

But there is this new step that you want to do in the Metaverse where you want to have a building blocks that Dennis fund over time with your strategy, with your web tree strategy. So they started in this way to set the web tree in motion. And this is the collection, the beautiful collection that came out as you can see, completely different setting. Now in a few days we will issue also another collection. This would be more in the wine area and it would be really fantastic project, very close to my art and how Authena heart, because it’s connected with these starting point of the apes, but it would be really Gorilla Wine, we call it.

Nick Abrahams:

Gorilla Wine. Yeah.

Rossana Rogers:

Okay. Yes.

Nick Abrahams:

So we got from whiskey to furniture to basketball to Gorilla Wine now.

Rossana Rogers:

Yes. So there would be a bottle from a producer distributor in Switzerland, Schuler Wine and what they will give, so there is a beautiful label that comes on the wine that has been generated with the mid journey AI image generation of this gorilla. But then I think that there is much more because they will connect to the owner of this entity webinars about where the grapes come from, how this wine was made, and from Authena we will donate 50% of our revenues to the Gorillas organization.

Nick Abrahams:

Oh lovely.

Rossana Rogers:

So that part of this, let’s say Meta Utility would be also to support Gorilla. So as you see a little bit different from pure art.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah.

Rossana Rogers:

But nevertheless, it’s more close to our stories to us as authentic, really mission and naturally many of our customer, they gravitate around this authenticity, these authentic stories that you can tell now with a new technology.

Nick Abrahams:

Yeah, no, it’s fantastic. Well, look, we could talk for a long time, but I should let you get back to your days. That has been fantastic. Maybe just a final question. If people are out there who have sort of counterfeiting or product authenticity issues, how’s the best way, I mean you’ve got a wonderful website obviously at Authena, but how’s the best way? What sort of organizations, it seems like a broad range of organizations that you’ve met there, but mentioned there. What is sort the sweet spot for companies coming to work with Authena?

Rossana Rogers:

I think that the easiest way to connect with us, as you said, is the website. They can contact us, contact at Authena, or they can request a demo, also there we have a very clear call to action or they can call us. There is a sales telephone number, naturally a Swiss number or as you did just contact me or Mateo Panzavolta or Ivan in LinkedIn. I think that this is now the most also effective way to communicate.

Nick Abrahams:

Indeed. Well that’s fantastic. Thank you very much for spending time with us today. Thank you Rossana. Thank you Ivan.

Ivan Miljkovic:

Thank you.

Rossana Rogers:

Thank you Nick for the opportunity.