Financing £ 3.5 million! The company uses laser to carve anti-counterfeiting ID

Opsydia, a diamond laser anti-counterfeiting technology company derived from the University of Oxford in the UK, recently announced that the company has received a grant of 3.5 million pounds. The investors in this round of financing include Foresight Group, Parkwalk Advisors and Oxford Science Enterprise.

At present, Opsydia plans to use the huge potential market of polished diamonds to increase its value. In the past, these diamonds were usually processed in the natural diamond and laboratory bred diamond sectors.

This investment will also enable Opsydia to expand its R&D department, which is focusing on emerging areas such as diamond based electronic products and diamond based quantum solutions. Next, it will expand the recruitment of employees from engineering, software development and production teams.
Christopher Wiles, the investment director of Foresight Group, commented that "Opsydia's technology has the potential to become a standard in the diamond industry in the next 20 years. We look forward to supporting Opsydia's experienced management team to achieve this goal."

Andrew Rimmer, CEO of Opsydia, added: "The Foresight Williams team has a deep understanding of advanced technologies and hardware systems. With this funding, we will be able to use this unique technology to promote the next stage of growth."

Image source: Opsydia

It is reported that the common diamond identification methods on the market at present cannot completely prevent fraud. However, as consumers pay more attention to the traceability of gemstones and the growing diamond market cultivated by laboratories, stakeholders in the jewelry industry increasingly want to ensure that their gemstones can be accurately identified.

Opsydia uses next-generation surface and subsurface laser technology to cut invisible unique IDs (for accurate identification) under the diamond surface with a diameter of only 0.5mm, thus reducing the sales of such fraudulent gemstones. This technology can leave a diameter of at least 1 micron on the diamond（ μ m) The LOGO mark of the diamond has little effect on the clarity grade of the diamond itself. By laser writing permanent and non imitative serial numbers, images, logos or encrypted data, "fake identification" becomes more simple and reliable, and will not damage the integrity of the material, nor affect its surface finish.

Opsydia was founded by Martin Booth and Patrick Salter in 2017. Headquartered in Oxfordshire, southern England, the company subverts the jewelry industry by creating an almost invisible structure in transparent materials. A branch of Oxford University has developed a laser based technology that can quickly and accurately mark the subsurface of diamonds and other gemstones.

This technology is an important progress. For batch manufacturers, it can ensure their supply chain and protect them from the influence of diamond products cultivated in laboratories. At present, the technology of Opsydia is used in the latest ASSURE diamond verification project of the Natural Diamond Council (NDC).

In the future, Opsydia's technology can be deployed around the world for use by jewelers, miners, manufacturers and grading laboratories to help the industry cope with the challenges of traceability, fraud, forgery and non disclosure. The company has sold its systems to diamond companies operating in the synthetic and natural stone markets, and its customers include some of the world's largest diamond companies.

Source: ofweek