Dusseldorf Not only the players of 1. FC Köln are looking forward to the game against AC Milan on Saturday. David Geisser, co-founder and CEO of the start-up CollectID, can’t wait for the spectators to flock to the stadium. Because they wear fan scarves, which are also admission tickets. His company makes it possible.
The Swiss company CollectID combines physical products with digital content. By scanning an NFC chip in a jersey or scarf, fans can also get information about the product or exclusive digital content – and clubs can get valuable data about their most loyal supporters and best customers.
For the clubs, the search for new income opportunities has become a struggle for survival, especially during the Corona period. However, especially in merchandising, revenues in the Bundesliga have been stagnating for years. CollectID would like to give new impetus to this.
Near Field Communication Technology (NFC) is familiar to most people from cashless payments. The integrated chip has a unique ID that is stored on the blockchain as a non-fungible token (NFT). This not only makes every jersey “unique” thanks to a digital twin, but also counterfeit-proof.
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“Scanning gives fans a new opportunity to interact with the club,” says David Geisser. The CEO of CollectID is a big football fan himself. As a child, the St. Gallen native attended the games of the traditional East Swiss club. He started the first pilot project with FC St. Gallen in 2019.
Financing round successfully completed
Events related to the product, such as attending a football game, can also be stored on the blockchain and then displayed. In the future, CollectID wants to be the gateway to the Metaverse, where fans can put on the physical jersey by scanning their digital avatar.
Geisser founded CollectID in 2018 with three colleagues. There are familiar faces on the Advisory Board, such as former Fifa official Marco Villiger, ex-soccer player Benjamin Huggel and Bettina Hein, juror in the Swiss edition of “Lion’s Cave”.
>> Read here: When football professionals like Götze or Neuer invest in start-ups
At the beginning of the year, the seed financing round of 3.2 million Swiss francs was successfully completed. In the meantime, 320,000 products have already been equipped with a chip.
Clubs should also benefit from the solution. “Because the fan can be better understood through CollectID,” claims the CEO. The scanning would give incentives to download the club app, and the club now knows which products each fan owns. Create a direct line to the fan via the product – this is the promise to the clubs.
Sporting goods manufacturer Jako uses the technology
In addition to FC St. Gallen, other clubs are now using the technology. The biggest project so far is a special jersey with the Brazilian club Atlético Mineiro. 120,000 jerseys were sold there within a few days. After scanning, fans could access an interactive map and communicate with like-minded people around the world.
But the technology is also slowly arriving in Germany. VFB Stuttgart and Bayer Leverkusen wore special jerseys made from recycled materials on one match day. The jersey manufacturer Jako used the integrated chip to communicate the content of the “Our Team for a Better World” campaign to the fans. In addition, the growth of a tree that was planted for each jersey could be tracked after the scan.
1. FC Köln is generally open to new technologies. Since 2018, the Cologne-based company has been supporting selected young companies in its own funding program. According to its own statement, 1. FC Köln Hype Spin Accelerator is the first Sport Tech Accelerator within the German Bundesliga.
Wines and luxury items become counterfeit-proof
The start-up is not only active in sports, but also in the wine trade and in the luxury goods industry. The main focus there, however, is on counterfeit protection of the products, says Geisser. Growth is now the top priority for the company.
This is also confirmed by one of CollectID’s investors, Marcel Walker: “I am convinced of the idea and the people behind it.” The challenge now is to win an internationally known club as a customer. In addition, the potential of a community must be further exploited. Geisser also sees this and names the US market, among other things, as the next big goal.
In 2017, the US giant Nike tried to establish a similar technology with “NBA Connected”. Jerseys of the American basketball league NBA were equipped with NFC chips. But this project failed.
Geisser sees the reason why the timing was wrong. Only with the upswing in cashless payment would practically all mobile phones be able to read NFC chips. While almost all new models have this feature these days, the technology wasn’t widespread in 2017.
CollectID has now made a start in the huge market. Since the beginning of the year, the American NHL team “Nashville Predators” has been the first customer in the USA.
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