Startup landscape: Digital product passports & traceability — the companies to watch and why

The European Union's Digital Product Passport (DPP) regulation, finalized under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), will require standardized digital records for batteries by February 2027, textiles by 2028, and electronics by 2030. This regulatory tsunami is catalyzing a global startup ecosystem worth an estimated $4.2 billion by 2028, with Asia-Pacific emerging as both the largest supply-side implementation market and a growing hub for traceability technology development. For executives navigating this transition, understanding which companies are building the infrastructure for product-level transparency is no longer optional. It is a strategic imperative.

Why It Matters

Digital product passports represent the most significant shift in product data management since the introduction of barcodes. The ESPR mandates that every product sold in the EU carry a machine-readable data carrier linking to a digital record containing information on materials composition, carbon footprint, repairability scores, recycled content percentages, and end-of-life handling instructions. The regulation affects an estimated 30 million product types and will require compliance from manufacturers across every continent that exports to European markets.

The economic implications are substantial. McKinsey estimates that full DPP implementation across EU supply chains will require $12 to $18 billion in technology investment between 2025 and 2030. Companies that delay implementation face exclusion from the world's largest single market. According to the European Commission's impact assessment, DPPs are expected to generate net economic benefits of $9 billion annually through improved recycling efficiency, reduced counterfeiting, and better material recovery.

For Asia-Pacific manufacturers, where an estimated 65% of EU-bound consumer goods originate, the compliance burden is acute. Factories across China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, India, and Southeast Asia must integrate digital traceability systems into production lines that often lack basic digitization. This gap has created enormous market opportunity for startups that can bridge legacy manufacturing processes and the data-rich future that regulators demand.

Beyond Europe, similar frameworks are emerging globally. Japan's Green Transformation initiative includes product-level carbon disclosure requirements. South Korea's Extended Producer Responsibility reforms are incorporating digital tracking. Australia's National Plastics Plan mandates traceability for packaging materials. The convergence of these regulatory frameworks means that DPP infrastructure built today will serve compliance needs across multiple jurisdictions simultaneously.

Key Concepts

Digital Product Passport (DPP) refers to a structured digital record attached to a physical product via a unique identifier (typically a QR code, RFID tag, or NFC chip) that provides standardized information about the product's composition, origin, environmental impact, and circularity attributes. The EU ESPR specifies minimum data requirements that vary by product category but universally include materials composition, carbon footprint data, and instructions for repair, disassembly, and recycling. DPPs must be interoperable, meaning data must be accessible through open standards regardless of the technology provider.

Supply Chain Traceability encompasses the technologies and processes that track raw materials and components from extraction through manufacturing, distribution, use, and end-of-life. Effective traceability requires data capture at each transformation point in the supply chain, creating an auditable record of custody, processing conditions, and provenance. Multi-tier traceability, extending visibility beyond direct (Tier 1) suppliers to raw material sources (Tier 3 and beyond), remains the greatest technical and commercial challenge.

Data Carrier Technologies are the physical mechanisms that link products to their digital records. QR codes offer the lowest implementation cost (fractions of a cent per unit) but limited data density and no security features. RFID tags enable batch scanning without line-of-sight but cost $0.05 to $0.50 per unit depending on specifications. NFC chips support consumer interaction via smartphones and cost $0.10 to $1.00 per unit. Emerging technologies including digital watermarks and molecular markers offer tamper-proof identification at varying price points.

Interoperability Standards define how DPP data is structured, stored, and exchanged across systems. The EU is developing delegated acts specifying data models for each product category, building on existing standards from GS1 (for product identification), EPCIS (for event-level tracking), and W3C Verifiable Credentials (for authenticated data exchange). Companies building on these open standards will have structural advantages over those using proprietary data formats.

The Startup Landscape: Categories and Key Players

Infrastructure and Data Platform Providers

This category includes companies building the foundational technology layers that enable DPP creation, management, and access. These platforms serve as the operating system for product passports, handling data ingestion, storage, verification, and distribution.

Circulor (London, Series B, $25 million raised) has built a supply chain traceability platform used by Volvo, Polestar, and the London Metal Exchange. Circulor's system tracks materials from mine to manufacturer using a combination of mass balance accounting and blockchain-anchored verification. Their work with Volvo on tracing cobalt and mica through battery supply chains represents one of the most mature implementations of multi-tier traceability in automotive. The company processes over 5 million traceability events monthly across mining, refining, and manufacturing nodes.

Circularise (The Hague, Series A, $10 million raised) differentiates through its "smart questioning" protocol, which enables supply chain data sharing without revealing commercially sensitive supplier relationships. Their approach uses zero-knowledge proof cryptography, allowing a brand to verify that a material meets sustainability criteria without accessing the underlying supplier data. Circularise has partnerships with Porsche, Covestro, and Domo Chemicals, focusing initially on plastics and chemicals traceability.

Spherity (Dortmund, Series A, $8 million raised) specializes in decentralized identity solutions for product passports, building on W3C standards for verifiable credentials. Their platform enables products to carry tamper-proof digital identities that can be verified without reliance on a central database. Spherity's work with the European Commission's pilot programs and partnerships with SAP position it as a standards-aligned infrastructure provider.

Sector-Specific Solutions

TextileGenesis (Hong Kong, Series A, $15 million raised) has become the dominant traceability platform for the fashion and textiles industry, covering fiber-to-retail tracking for over 50 brands including H&M, Eileen Fisher, and Birla Cellulose. The platform uses digital tokens representing physical material flows, creating a verifiable chain of custody from fiber production through spinning, weaving, dyeing, cutting, and sewing. TextileGenesis processes traceability data for approximately 8% of global viscose fiber production, demonstrating the scale required for meaningful industry coverage.

Minespider (Berlin, Series A, $7 million raised) focuses on mineral and metals supply chain traceability, addressing due diligence requirements under the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation and the upcoming Battery Regulation. Their platform creates digital certificates for material batches at each processing stage, enabling downstream manufacturers to verify responsible sourcing claims. Minespider works with the Responsible Minerals Initiative and has deployments across tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold supply chains.

Everledger (Brisbane, $45 million raised total) pioneered blockchain-based provenance tracking for diamonds and has expanded into wine, luxury goods, and critical minerals. Their platform creates digital twins of physical objects using a combination of AI-powered identification, IoT sensors, and distributed ledger technology. Everledger's work with the Gemological Institute of America on diamond traceability established the viability of item-level digital identity for high-value goods and informed subsequent approaches to mass-market product passports.

Data Carrier and Hardware Providers

Digimarc (Beaverton, Oregon, publicly traded) offers imperceptible digital watermarks that can be embedded directly into product packaging, labels, and surfaces without visible modification. Unlike QR codes, Digimarc watermarks cover the entire surface area of packaging, enabling rapid scanning from any angle at retail checkout or recycling facilities. The technology has been adopted by the HolyGrail 2.0 initiative, a consortium of 160+ companies developing intelligent sorting infrastructure for packaging waste across Europe.

Authentic Vision (Salzburg, Series B, $12 million raised) produces unclonable security labels combining physical random patterns with digital verification. Each label contains a unique random pattern created during manufacturing that cannot be reproduced, enabling consumers and supply chain partners to verify product authenticity via smartphone. The technology addresses counterfeiting, which the OECD estimates costs legitimate businesses $509 billion annually in lost revenue.

PragmatIC Semiconductor (Cambridge, $120 million raised) manufactures ultra-thin, flexible integrated circuits that can be embedded in product packaging at costs approaching $0.01 per unit at scale. Their FlexICs enable item-level identification for mass-market consumer goods where traditional silicon-based RFID is too expensive. PragmatIC's partnership with Amcor, the world's largest packaging company, signals the potential for embedding digital identity in billions of everyday products.

Asia-Pacific Regional Leaders

Ping Identity Solutions (Singapore) and TraceX Technologies (Bangalore, $7 million raised) represent the emerging wave of Asia-Pacific traceability startups addressing the region's unique manufacturing landscape. TraceX has built a farm-to-fork traceability platform used by over 50,000 farmers across India, providing the data infrastructure needed for agricultural product passports. Their platform digitizes smallholder farm records, enabling exporters to comply with EU deforestation regulation requirements.

TrusTrace (Stockholm/Bangalore, $20 million raised) operates a supply chain transparency platform purpose-built for the fashion industry with significant operations across South and Southeast Asia. Working with brands including H&M, Aldi, and PVH (Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger), TrusTrace maps multi-tier supply chains across garment-producing countries, capturing facility-level data on environmental and social compliance. The platform covers over 70,000 suppliers across 100+ countries.

Startup Landscape KPIs: Benchmark Ranges

Metric	Early Stage	Growth Stage	Scale-Up	Market Leader
Supply Chain Nodes Connected	<1,000	1,000-10,000	10,000-100,000	>100,000
Traceability Events Processed Monthly	<100K	100K-1M	1M-10M	>10M
Product Categories Covered	1-2	2-5	5-15	>15
Customer Revenue Retention	<80%	80-100%	100-120%	>120%
Cost per Product Passport Created	>$1.00	$0.20-1.00	$0.05-0.20	<$0.05
Data Standards Compliance (ESPR)	Partial	Substantial	Full	Full + additional

What Differentiates Winners

Three factors consistently separate the most promising DPP startups from the rest of the field.

First, standards alignment matters more than technology novelty. Companies building on GS1 Digital Link, EPCIS 2.0, and W3C Verifiable Credentials are positioned for interoperability mandates that the EU will enforce through delegated acts. Proprietary data formats may offer short-term differentiation but create long-term lock-in risk that sophisticated enterprise buyers increasingly reject.

Second, multi-tier supply chain reach determines market viability. A DPP is only as credible as its weakest data link. Startups that have demonstrated the ability to capture data from Tier 3 and Tier 4 suppliers in developing markets, where digital infrastructure is limited and supplier cooperation is uncertain, have a structural advantage. TextileGenesis, Circulor, and TrusTrace have invested heavily in field operations and supplier onboarding in manufacturing regions across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Third, cost economics at scale will determine market consolidation. The DPP market will ultimately serve billions of products annually. Startups that can deliver product-level digital identity below $0.05 per unit, including data capture, storage, and access, will capture the mass market. Those targeting only premium or regulated categories will occupy valuable but limited niches.

Action Checklist

• Map your product portfolio against the EU ESPR implementation timeline to identify which categories face DPP requirements first
• Audit existing supply chain data systems for gaps in Tier 2 and Tier 3 visibility
• Evaluate DPP platform providers against interoperability standards (GS1 Digital Link, EPCIS 2.0)
• Pilot DPP implementation with a single product line in the highest-priority regulatory category
• Engage key suppliers in Asia-Pacific manufacturing regions on data capture requirements and timelines
• Assess data carrier options (QR, RFID, NFC, digital watermark) based on product type, unit economics, and end-of-life sorting needs
• Budget for supplier onboarding costs, which typically equal 40 to 60% of total DPP implementation investment
• Monitor delegated acts under the ESPR for product-specific data requirements as they are finalized

FAQ

Q: When do companies actually need to comply with EU Digital Product Passport requirements? A: The timeline is product-category specific. Batteries face the earliest deadline with DPP requirements effective February 2027. Textiles are expected by 2028, followed by electronics, furniture, and construction materials through 2030. However, the European Commission continues to finalize delegated acts specifying exact data requirements for each category. Companies should plan for at least 18 to 24 months of implementation time from the point delegated acts are published for their product categories.

Q: How much does it cost to implement a DPP system across a product portfolio? A: Implementation costs vary widely based on supply chain complexity and existing digital maturity. Enterprise-scale deployments typically range from $500,000 to $5 million for initial platform setup, data integration, and supplier onboarding. Ongoing operating costs run $0.05 to $0.50 per product passport depending on data complexity and verification requirements. Organizations with existing ERP and supply chain management systems can expect lower integration costs than those starting from manual or paper-based processes.

Q: Should companies build DPP systems internally or partner with specialized providers? A: For most organizations, partnering with specialized providers is more practical and cost-effective than building internally. The DPP technology stack requires expertise in data standards, supply chain digitization, security, and regulatory compliance that few companies maintain in-house. Internal builds also risk non-compliance with evolving interoperability standards. The exception is large technology companies or conglomerates with existing digital infrastructure teams that may benefit from building proprietary layers on top of open-source standards.

Q: How do DPP requirements affect companies outside the EU? A: Any company that manufactures, imports, or sells products in the EU market must comply with DPP requirements regardless of where the company is headquartered. This means that manufacturers in China, India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and other major exporting countries must implement traceability systems that feed data into EU-compliant product passports. Non-EU companies that supply components or materials to EU-bound products also face indirect compliance obligations through their customers' data requirements.

Q: What role does blockchain play in DPP infrastructure? A: Blockchain serves as one of several verification mechanisms for DPP data integrity but is not a regulatory requirement. Companies like Circulor and Circularise use distributed ledger technology to create tamper-proof records of supply chain events, while others achieve similar assurance through centralized databases with cryptographic audit trails. The EU's technical specifications are technology-neutral, specifying data outcomes rather than specific infrastructure approaches. Organizations should evaluate blockchain-based solutions on their practical merits rather than treating blockchain as a prerequisite.

Sources

• European Commission. (2025). Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation: Implementation Roadmap and Delegated Acts Progress. Brussels: European Commission Publications.
• McKinsey & Company. (2025). Digital Product Passports: The $18 Billion Compliance and Opportunity Landscape. McKinsey Sustainability Practice.
• GS1. (2025). Digital Link and EPCIS 2.0: Technical Standards for Product-Level Data Exchange. Brussels: GS1 Global Office.
• World Economic Forum. (2025). Digital Product Passports: Scaling Transparency Across Global Value Chains. Geneva: WEF.
• OECD & European Union Intellectual Property Office. (2024). Trade in Counterfeit Goods and Free Trade Zones: Global Trends and Impacts. Paris: OECD Publishing.
• PitchBook. (2025). Circular Economy Technology: Emerging Startup Landscape Analysis, Q4 2025. Seattle: PitchBook Data.
• Asian Development Bank. (2025). Digital Trade Infrastructure in Asia-Pacific: Regulatory Alignment and Technology Readiness. Manila: ADB Publications.