RETRO//VRS

A phygital marketplace for pre-owned luxury goods with an embedded blockchain secured authentication service that protects customers and sellers against counterfeit sales.

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Inspiration

From 2018-2020, luxury brands incurred losses totaling $30.3 Billion USD due to consumers unknowingly purchasing counterfeit merchandise via the internet alone. Beside We have all heard a story or two about the guy who bought a rare limited edition sneaker only to find out it is not 100% authentic. Maybe you heard the story about the woman who spent $5000 on a fake Chanel bag instead. Solving the problem of inadvertently purchasing a preowned replica luxury item for not only the brands but also the consumers using more than just the human eye is the core problem we are trying to solve. Building trust and then securing that trust for future resales is the ultimate goal.

What it does

A one of a kind phygital marketplace for pre-owned luxury goods with an embedded blockchain secured authentication service that protects customers and sellers against counterfeit sales. The authentication is delivered in the form of a 3D digital twin minted as a Physical Backed Token. This way, the authentication It is attached to object itself, not to an event, a paper or a chip. It enables digital traceability of the authenticated luxury goods.

How we built it

RETRO//VRS is developed using React Native and React Native Web, currently it is availaible in iOS and Web. It uses photogrammetry to generate 3D Digital Twin from pictures of luxury item and uses React Three Fiber to display the 3D Digital Twin.

We are planning to build our product in 3 stages.

  1. Social platform for luxury collector to manage, share, track, and grow their collection through 3D Digital Twin. The goal is to build community while at the same time gathering 3D models data for our R&D on Phygital Authentication Service.
  2. Phygital marketplace for pre-owned luxury. At first we are going to work with 3rd party for the authentication and provide fingerprinting service to link 3D Digital Twin with the item.
  3. Phygital Authentication Service, enabling user to authenticate their item by scanning their item via RETRO//VRS App.

Currently we are in MVP Phase; Social platform for luxury collector.

Challenges we ran into

  • Providing AR Experience in multi platform are challenging. As we use React Native and React Native Web, there are very limited solution available that allow us to develop AR experience using React Three Fiber.

  • Building Photogrammetry pipeline to integrate 3D scanning into our app, has been quite a challenge. User experience and generation speed would be the main issue that we are still trying to improve.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Accepted into Station F Founders Program 2.0 Accelerator program in Sept 2022

  • Ludovic Simon, head of growth at Ledger, as our 1st Advisor

  • Isabella Livia, previously head of business development and enterprise sales at The RealReal, as our 1st employee

What we learned

  • ZapWorks Universal AR are a great technology to bring AR experience to our multi platform app. We tried to use native iOS AR Viewer but there are a lot of limitations. ZapWorks Universal AR allows us to use React Fiber Three where we have a lot of control on developing AR experience.

What's next for RETRO//VRS

  • Working to integrate authentication service and physical certified authenticators into RETRO//VRS.

  • Working with retailers (physical and online) to put their products in RETRO//VRS.

  • Working with luxury and streetwear brands to provide a blockchain secured digital twin of their products.

  • Building community.

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