Anti-Counterfeiting in India: A Deep Patent Base with Thin Startup Activity

What it is

Anti-counterfeiting technologies are methods that make products and packaging difficult to replicate, protecting brand reputation, consumer safety, and revenue. They span overt features visible to the naked eye — holograms, color-shifting inks — and covert features that require special tools to verify, such as invisible inks or digital tags.

Electronic technologies like RFID and NFC use radio signals for tracking, while digital solutions like blockchain create immutable records of product provenance. The World Health Organization estimates that 1 in 10 medicines in low- and middle-income countries are substandard or falsified, underscoring the stakes.

Key application areas include pharmaceuticals, luxury goods, automotive parts, FMCG, food and beverages, consumer electronics, and apparel. In India, apparel and fashion face a 31% exposure rate, while pharmaceuticals follow at 28%, according to an ASPA/CRISIL report.

The value chain

The anti-counterfeiting value chain stretches from raw material suppliers to end consumers, with brand owners and packaging manufacturers holding significant influence over technology adoption. Defensibility and margin concentrate where security features are embedded and verified.

• Raw material suppliers — provide inputs; counterfeiting risk starts at source.
• Component manufacturers — produce parts or ingredients; authentication needed to prevent fakes.
• Brand owners / product designers — key decision-makers selecting anti-counterfeiting tech (e.g., Bayer, Syngenta, Marico Ltd., Kenvue).
• Packaging manufacturers — embed holograms, RFID tags, or covert markers (e.g., ScanTrust, Authentic Vision, VerifyMe, Digimarc).
• Logistics / distribution — track-and-trace to prevent diversion (e.g., TrusTrace).
• Retailers — need verification tools to spot fakes.
• Consumers — verify via smartphone apps or visual inspection.

Where it's heading

Global and India-specific trends point toward more sophisticated, digital-first anti-counterfeiting strategies, driven by generative AI threats and e-commerce growth.

• Shift from overt to covert technologies — overt features are increasingly replicated; covert markers offer harder-to-copy security (Advantages of Covert Anti-Counterfeiting Technology).
• Online counterfeiting surge — e-commerce marketplaces, social media, and anonymity fuel fake sales (Protecting Brands: Anti-Counterfeiting Strategies).
• Digital authentication and blockchain — smartphone-based verification and immutable traceability records gain traction (Anti counterfeiting technology companies: a comprehensive guide).
• Packaging market growth — global anti-counterfeiting packaging market projected at USD 171–201 billion, growing at 8–13% CAGR (Fortune Business Insights, InsightAce Analytic).
• India consumer reality — 89% of urban consumers admit to buying counterfeits; 53% of those purchases happen via online aggregators (ASPA/CRISIL).

The opportunity in India

India's anti-counterfeiting problem is massive — nearly 1 in 3 consumers encountered a fake product in the last year, and 29% of products in local markets are estimated counterfeit (ASPA/CRISIL). Yet the deep-tech startup response remains thin.

Our dataset lists 7 deep-tech companies that explicitly reference anti-counterfeiting in their profiles, and only 5 startups hold patents mapped to the technology. This is a lower-bound signal, not a census, but it suggests a wide gap between the scale of the problem and the density of patent-backed innovation.

Funding in the dominant sector, defence-security, totals $134.9M across 38 companies, but anti-counterfeiting-specific capital is not separately tracked. The white space is clearest in covert authentication, digital verification, and sector-specific solutions for pharmaceuticals and apparel — areas where India's counterfeit exposure is highest and patent-linked startup activity is sparse.

India signal: patents, startups, capital

Our data maps 38 patents to anti-counterfeiting technology, with steady filing momentum — noting that the last two years are understated due to the 18-month confidentiality lag in Indian patent publication. The patent stock is building, but the startup landscape remains lean.

Only 5 patent-holding startups appear in our dataset: Omnisecure Private Limited (3 patents, Thiruvananthapuram), Akhilesh Kumar Singh (1, Patna), Onearvo Ventures Private Limited (1, New Delhi), Rupali Gupta (1, Meerut), and Sepio Solutions Private Limited (1, Mumbai Suburban). Separately, 7 companies in our data reference anti-counterfeiting in their profiles, including Neuproof Solutions (Chennai), Digital Edge Technologies (Bengaluru), and Huebright Colors (Bengaluru Urban).

Sector-level funding in defence-security — the dominant sector for these patents — reached $134.9M across 38 funded companies, with a median raise of $1.0M. Notable funded players include Tonbo Imaging ($55M, series D+), Big Bang Boom Solutions ($35.1M), and Sanlayan ($22.4M, series A), though their direct anti-counterfeiting focus varies.

In our data

Sources

• Anti-counterfeiting Technologies ↗
• Advantages of Covert Anti-Counterfeiting Technology ↗
• Anti counterfeiting technology companies ↗
• A Supply Chain Management Perspective on Mitigating the ... ↗
• Resilient by design: The agentic supply chain ↗
• Traceability and Anti-Counterfeiting in Agri-Food Supply Chains ↗
• The Future of Anti-Counterfeiting, Brand Protection and Security ... ↗
• Anti-Counterfeiting Packaging Market Size and Share [2034] ↗