Veritas to embed anti-counterfeit chips in 18 ATHLOS championship crowns

Veritas will embed its second-generation anti-counterfeit chip in all 18 championship crowns of ATHLOS, a women's track-and-field league founded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.

The partnership, announced during Veritas' appearance at the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield this week in San Francisco, marks the startup's first live sports deployment. Each crown will carry a chip that customers tap with a phone to verify authenticity.

What does the chip actually do?

Founder Luci Holland, a former Tesla technical product manager, said the chip pairs a tamper-detection wire with a secure authentication response generated on each tap. The new version works on metal and reads through glass, an upgrade from the garment-only original.

"Our approach combines secure, authenticated chip responses with integration into the product itself," Holland told TechCrunch. "Our chip generates a secure response with each tap and includes a tamper-detection wire. We make the connection between the object and its digital identity part of the proof."

A skeptic would press on durability. Holland disclosed neither tap-cycle limits nor failure behavior under sweat, impact, or the cleaning routines of professional sports gear.

Who is funding the bet?

Veritas has raised $1.75 million in pre-seed funding. Ohanian's Seven Seven Six leads the round and now doubles as the startup's most visible commercial partner through ATHLOS.

Other named backers:

• Stanley Tang, co-founder of DoorDash
• Gloria Zhu, co-founder of skincare brand Reys
• Josh Constine, former TechCrunch editor

The cap table is thin and dominated by individuals. Seven Seven Six's dual role as lead investor and league founder raises a fairness question: ATHLOS's adoption is a paying-customer test, but also an insider deal. Veritas did not respond to a request for contract details.

Where else will the chip land?

Holland said the second-generation chip supports jewelry, trophies, hard-surface goods, and glass objects such as fragrance bottles. Garments remain in the lineup.

"The next-generation chip is ready for production and supports a broader range of applications, including jewelry, trophies, hard-surface products, and glass objects such as fragrance bottles," Holland said.

Veritas also embedded a chip in a pair of LeBron James' first Nike sneakers, reimagined by artist Adam Port. Tapping the shoe surfaces its history and backstory. One athlete, one artist, and one league do not equal a market.

What does this mean for luxury brands?

Counterfeiters have grown skilled at replicating brand marks, producing "superfakes" that pass casual inspection. Incumbents still rely on QR codes and static NFC tags that forgers routinely clone. Veritas pitches its wired chip as harder to copy, since removing it breaks the wire.

The company has not disclosed unit sales, customer count, or production volume. Brands evaluating the technology would want to know per-chip cost, integration time per product line, and field failure rates. None of those figures appear in the company's public materials.

Veritas shipped an iOS app and a brand portal since its February fundraise. Brands issue ownership certificates and run loyalty features through both. The features matter less than whether the chip holds up to daily wear.

For now, Veritas has a flashy demo across 18 crowns and a celebrity shoe, plus $1.75 million to scale. The real test arrives when a paying fashion house, not an insider league, signs on.