The Identity Layer for Physical Commerce

Thesis

When you buy something physical, you get a receipt. It proves the sale happened. It can't prove the item is real, follow the item into resale, or give the brand a way to reach you through the product itself. The brand has an order. The buyer has an email. Nothing ties the item, owner, and brand together after checkout.

That gap is finally being named. Counterfeits move freely because provenance doesn't travel. Resale markets fight fraud because ownership isn't portable. Brands lose many of their customers the moment checkout ends. The EU's response is the Digital Product Passport, a digital record designed to live with each physical product, built to fight fakes and force supply chain transparency. Textiles are first, other categories follow.

We think these records grow into something bigger than compliance. They become the connective tissue of physical commerce, the thing that keeps buyers, brands, and items connected after the sale.

But a product record only matters if people use it, and every other digital ID model still depends on a buyer scanning a QR or NFC tag after purchase.

At 3fa, we believe ownership should be assigned to buyers at purchase. We help brands digitize their inventory before products are sold, then create a unique digital ID for each physical item at checkout and transfer it into the buyer's account.

That profile becomes the ongoing surface for proof of ownership, product content, rewards, events, support, resale, and community. Engagement is the wedge. Ownership infrastructure is the platform.

Why now

Physical commerce has a provenance Provenance is the verified history of where a product came from, who sold it, and who owns it over time. problem. Counterfeits move because product history does not travel cleanly across stores, marketplaces, resale, repairs, returns, and lifecycle workflows. A USPTO-commissioned Library of Congress report describes counterfeiting as the world's largest criminal enterprise, with domestic and international sales of counterfeit and pirated goods estimated at $1.7T-$4.5T annually. OECD/EUIPO separately estimated global trade in counterfeit goods at approximately $467B in 2021, or 2.3% of global imports.

This is not just a fashion The top categories of fakes include clothing, footwear, and accessories such as handbags. OECD/EUIPO problem. Product trust is breaking across pharma An estimated $200 billion of counterfeit drugs go on the market annually. Forbes , cosmetics GAO found 20 of 47 third-party marketplace purchases counterfeit, including 13 of 13 cosmetics samples. New York Times , food Just the fake Parmesan market alone reaches an estimated $2 billion annually. Business Insider , electronics GAO bought 16 electronic parts online; all 16 were counterfeit, including parts used in military systems. U.S. Senate / GAO , and transportation As much as 10% of the legal market for aircraft parts are counterfeits. British Journal of Criminology .

Digital Product Passports are turning that problem into a procurement decision. For brands that sell into Europe, physical products are moving toward digital records tied to unique product identifiers. Textiles and apparel are among the first priority categories, and the EU's 2025-2030 ESPR working plan points to 2027 for adoption.

1. 2024
   Framework enters the market

   The EU makes Digital Product Passports part of the product-data conversation.

2. 2027
   Textiles move first

   Textiles and apparel are prioritized for adoption planning as brands begin choosing infrastructure.

3. 2028
   Compliance pressure starts

   After textile rules are adopted, requirements are expected to phase in; ESPR requires Member States to set penalties, including fines and public-procurement exclusion.

4. 2030
   Passport volume becomes massive

   ABI Research estimates 62.5B apparel Digital Product Passports will be issued globally.

The question is not whether product records will exist. The question is which platform can make them useful to consumers.

Activation gap

Digital product records are only useful if consumers actually receive and use them.

Every other digital ID and product passport system depends on a QR code or NFC scan after purchase. The buyer has to notice the tag, understand why it matters, scan it, and often create another account before any value appears. In operator conversations, that behavior typically reaches less than 10% of buyers.

3fa is the embedded model. Brands digitize inventory before sale; when a product is purchased, the digital ID transfers into the buyer's phone-based account. No tag scan, no app download, no new password.

Product

3fa works with brands, initially DTC Shopify brands, to digitize their inventories before products are sold. At checkout, 3fa creates a unique digital ID for each physical item purchased, resolves the buyer's account, and transfers the purchased products' digital IDs into their profile. The buyer then receives a rich mobile URL that opens directly into their closet: a product-focused surface for ownership, brand content, utility, and future resale or lifecycle workflows.

1. Inventory digitization

   Starting with Shopify, 3fa connects to a brand's catalog and imports live products, previously sold products, variants, images, and product metadata. Image models and agentic workflows handle background removal, image reformatting, metadata population, product categorization, and product-type data formats so each product is ready for item-level ID creation at checkout.

2. Checkout ownership transfer

   When a customer buys an item, 3fa creates a unique digital ID for each physical item purchased, links the buyer's phone number to those exact item(s), and transfers the digital ID(s) into their account. We do this through checkout and point-of-sale extensions, shown below, that capture ownership at the moment it changes hands.

   Checkout ownership transfer

   Checkout flow showing verified ownership issued at purchase.

3. Mobile closet and product profiles

   The buyer receives an SMS/RCS link into a branded product profile and closet. This becomes the mobile surface for proof of purchase, returns, rewards, social engagement, events, resale, and future lifecycle records.

   Mobile closet and product profiles

   Consumer platform concept showing a branded product profile, closet, and item-level ownership details.

What ownership can power

Launch

3fa launches its first deep brand pilot with Midwest Cowboy on June 6, 2026. Founded by Ali Ahmed, Midwest Cowboy is an independent fashion/lifestyle brand with 27.5K Instagram followers and $300k-$500k ARR. Ali handmakes product, has built a culturally resonant community around the brand, and has been featured by Complex.

Midwest is giving 3fa broad access to its customer base, inventory, and post-purchase relationship. 3fa is syncing the brand's Shopify inventory, creating profiles for new buyers, and retroactively creating profiles for past purchasers that can be activated through email.

Launch features include RCS text receipts that route customers into their accounts, drop tracking, event management, partner perks with local Chicago brands, SMS marketing for enrolled consumers, and challenges or raffles that help build a social graph connected to buyers' social accounts.

Pilot hypothesis: checkout-embedded ownership plus SMS/RCS receipts can drive 5-10x higher activation than physical scan-based digital IDs.

The immediate proof point is activation: can checkout-issued ownership and SMS/RCS delivery convert materially more buyers into active product profiles than scan-based digital IDs?

GTM

3fa's first customers are high-end DTC brands where ownership already matters after purchase: fashion, lifestyle, and collectibles. These brands run drops, events, collaborations, perks, and resale experiments, but the owner relationship usually lives across disconnected tools.

Midwest Cowboy is the depth pilot. It proves checkout-issued ownership, SMS/RCS activation, product profiles, brand hubs, events, and perks in one contained launch. The next step is to convert warm conversations with community-led brands into a focused pilot cohort, especially brands where distribution matters: more channels, more resale surface area, and more need for a single owner record that follows the product after checkout.

The strongest enterprise signal is a $30M+ Shopify Plus brand. Their pain is not abstract. Owner communities, events, resale, and customer data sit in separate systems. They liked that 3fa could give them one premium surface for verified owners while creating the ownership data layer underneath. They also liked how simple the mobile sign-in felt: ownership could activate through the phone without forcing another heavy account flow.

Over time, resale becomes a major expansion path. Higher-end, durable, story-rich products are the right starting point because ownership matters after the first sale. If 3fa can help brands activate verified owners, it can later help them support resale, buyback, secondary-owner acquisition, and product lifecycle revenue.

Business model

3fa's near-term business model is B2B SaaS plus usage. Brands pay for the ownership infrastructure first: inventory digitization, checkout-issued digital IDs, buyer activation, brand hubs, and product profiles.

1. Platform fee A monthly fee based on brand scale and active ownership profiles. This is the core software layer: inventory intelligence, checkout ownership transfer, product profiles, closets, and brand relationship tooling.
2. Usage and campaign fees Fees for SMS/RCS activation, pass-through messaging rates, drops, events, challenges, partner perks, affiliate campaigns, and managed growth activations.
3. Implementation and compliance fees Paid support for Shopify setup, data cleanup, SMS/RCS regulatory registration, DPP readiness, lifecycle records, and future physical ID or data-carrier integrations.
4. Transaction revenue A 2.5% royalty on affiliate-attributed purchases, expected in 2026, and resale transactions, expected in 2027, with additional upside from buyback programs and circularity workflows once verified ownership becomes the system of record.

The first revenue goal is simple: prove that brands will pay for post-purchase identity because it improves activation, engagement, and owner data. The later upside comes from the same ownership graph powering resale, compliance, and lifecycle revenue.

Roadmap

The current financing window is about proving activation with Midwest Cowboy, deepening the owner experience, and turning the launch into a repeatable brand onboarding motion.

1. June 2026Pilot launch (profile, digital ID, events, drop calendar)

   Launch the first complete brand experience around checkout-issued ownership.

2. June-August 2026Feature depth (returns, reviews, challenges, affiliate marketing)

   Deepen Midwest Cowboy engagement and test repeatable post-purchase growth loops.

3. Aug-Dec 20263-5 more brands

   Launch with additional brands and secure two paid LOIs from larger Shopify Plus brands.

4. Early 2027Resale and buyback support

   Begin resale and buyback support for durable, story-rich products.

5. Mid 2027Seed raise

   Raise seed capital to expand resale, lifecycle, and DPP-readiness efforts.

6. Late 2027Physical ID integrations

   Begin pairing checkout-issued digital IDs with QR/NFC or other physical data carriers so brands can connect product passports back to real-world items.

Team

3fa is founder-led by Michael Herrington, who is full-time and built the platform end-to-end. He is supported by active part-time contributors across business development and AI operations.

Round

3fa is raising $150k-$300k on a rolling SAFE to turn its first brand launch into a repeatable commercial motion. The round funds the company through the Midwest Cowboy rollout, onboarding 3-5 additional community-led brands, and securing two paid LOIs from larger Shopify Plus brands with international distribution.