Dive Brief:

• Swiss startup ScanTrust raised $4.2 million from Credit Suisse, Innogy Ventures, Castor Ventures and others, Venture Beat reported, which brings ScanTrust's total funding to $6 million.
• Although the company currently only employs 25 people, ScanTrust is actively pursuing its mission to slap QR codes onto parts and finished products, which the company hopes will help reduce counterfeits in the market.
• By using ScanTrust's cloud-based software, companies can keep track of their parts and products and identify weak spots in their supply chains.

Dive Insight:

While QR codes have been used as an informational or identifying tool, this startup believes they can also be used to weed out fake products — especially in Chinese markets — where counterfeits are a pretty big problem. This new use for QR code technology has the potential to revolutionize supply chains and product quality, but of course that depends on ScanTrust's growth.

What's significant about this news is that a major multinational bank — Credit Suisse — thinks ScanTrust is worth such an investment. That should send a signal to potential investors, but also companies that want enhanced supply chain security and visibility, especially those companies that struggle with counterfeits in the supply chain.

Furthermore, ScanTrust's venture may be a future necessity for supply chains; as trust between company, supplier, distributor and buyer becomes increasingly important in today's economy for quality assurance and compensation purposes, technologies like QR codes will be more widely implemented. One similar example is blockchain — the tech fosters trust and transparency between company and supplier, which is why so many big companies are pioneering in the space and implementing it.

QR codes are already used to track products — verifying product authenticity is just the next step.