Sproxil is an American

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

-backed for-profit company based in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Greater Boston, Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most ...

that provides a consumer product verification service (called Mobile Authentication Service or MAS) to help consumers avoid purchasing

counterfeit To counterfeit means to imitate something authentic, with the intent to steal, destroy, or replace the original, for use in illegal transactions, or otherwise to deceive individuals into believing that the fake is of equal or greater value tha ...

products. The service was the first Mobile Authentication Service (MAS) to launch in Nigeria. Sproxil has operations in

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of G ...

, Mali, Ghana (serving West Africa), Tanzania, Kenya (serving East Africa), India and Pakistan (Asia).

Activity

Sproxil's service places a security label with a scratch-off panel on all protected products. Consumers scratch off the panel at a point of purchase to reveal a unique one-time use code. This is a form of

mass serialization In the distribution and logistics of many types of products, track and trace or tracking and tracing concerns a process of determining the current and past locations (and other information) of a unique item or property. This concept can be s ...

. The code is sent via SMS or mobile app to a country-specific

short code codes, or short numbers, are short digit sequences, significantly shorter than telephone numbers, that are used to address messages in the Multimedia Messaging System (MMS) and short message service (SMS) systems of mobile network operators. I ...

, and the consumer receives a reply almost instantly indicating that the product is genuine or suspicious. The company also has a 24/7 call center to provide support during the verification process and take in anonymous reports of suspicious counterfeiting activity.

Recent activity

In 2010,

NAFDAC The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in Nigeria is a federal agency under the Federal Ministry of Health that is responsible for regulating and controlling the manufacture, importation, exportation, advertis ...

, the Nigerian government agency overseeing food and drugs, endorsed the Sproxil platform and the service has been widely deployed throughout Nigeria. In April 2011,

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the ...

published a video discussing the role Sproxil played in the fight against counterfeit drugs in

. In February 2011, Sproxil announced that it had received $1.8 million in funding from

Acumen Fund Acumen (formerly known as Acumen Fund, legally Acumen Fund, Inc.) is a nonprofit impact investment fund focused on investing in social enterprises that serve low-income individuals in United States. Acumen was founded in April 2001 by Jacqueli ...

. Funding is being used to help the company expand into

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational corporation founded in 1886 that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company i ...

and GSK (

GlaxoSmithKline GSK plc, formerly GlaxoSmithKline plc, is a British Multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with global headquarters in London, England. Established in 2000 by a Mergers and acquisitions, merger of Gl ...

) are using Sproxil services in Africa as is the Nigerian distributor of

Merck KGaA The Merck Group, branded and commonly known as Merck, is a German multinational science and technology company headquartered in Darmstadt, with about 60,000 employees and present in 66 countries. The group includes around 250 companies; the ma ...

named Biofem. In June 2011, Sproxil launched operations in India and in July 2011 Kenya's

Pharmacy and Poisons Board The Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB or the Board in short) is the Drug Regulatory Authority established under the Pharmacy and Poisons Act, Chapter 244 of the Laws of Kenya. The Board regulates the Practice of Pharmacy and the Manufacture and ...

(PPB) also adopted similar text message-based anti-counterfeiting systems. As of early 2012, Sproxil announced that more than one million people in Africa had checked their medicines using the text-message based verification service developed by Sproxil. In February 2013, Sproxil signed on East African Cables to protect their electric cables through the Zinduka Initiative. The initiative utilizes the MPA solution to help consumers verify that their electrical cables are genuine before purchase. This partnership marked Sproxil's further expansion into non-pharmaceutical markets. Other industries that uses Sproxil's solution is textile and clothing (underwear). In 2014, the company expanded its Mobile Authentication services, originally available to consumers by SMS and call center, by adding mobile apps to their solution suite. The same year, Sproxil became ISO-27001 (for information security controls) and ISO-9001 (for quality management systems) certified after a comprehensive review of its internal processes. Soon after, Kenya-based agribusiness company Juanco SPS officially launched a consumer-facing project that protects pesticide Bestox 100EC with MPA technology.

Awards

2017 Unilever Global Development Award 2016 Innovative Healthcare Service Provider Of The Year 2015 Interface Health Excellence (IHX) Challenge 2015 Frost & Sullivan's Enabling Technology Leadership Award 2014 Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2013 USPTO Patents for Humanity Award 2013 #1 in health care and #7 overall in Fast Company Magazine World's 50 Most Innovative Companies 2012 ISMP Cheers Award - George DiDomizio Industry Award 2012 ICC World Business and Development Award 2010 Honorable Mention Global Finals, IBM Entrepreneur SmartCamp Competition 2010

MassChallenge MassChallenge is a global, zero-equity startup accelerator, founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 2009. MassChallenge is headquartered in Boston's Seaport District in the Innovation and Design Building, and has additional U.S. locations in Texas a ...

Finalist 2010 Mobile Infrastructure Award, MITX 2010 People's Choice Award at Accelerate Michigan 2010 Prize Winner, African Diaspora Marketplace 2010 Audience Choice Award Life Sciences at

Xconomy Xconomy is a Boston, Massachusetts–based media company providing news on business, life sciences, and technology{{cite web , title=Company Overview of Xconomy, Inc. , url=https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=3 ...

Xsite Xconomy XSITE 2010 Highlighted Innovation and Technology in Building the Next Economy
/ref> 2009 Outstanding Commitment Award in Global Health,

Clinton Global Initiative The Clinton Foundation (founded in 2001 as the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation, and renamed in 2013 as the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation) is a nonprofit organization under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code. It was es ...

UniversityTexting for Life: Mobile Phones Provide Freedom from the Ravages of Counterfeit Drugs in West Africa
/ref>

References

External links

{{Official website Companies based in Massachusetts Telecommunications companies of the United States Business software Authentication methods

Activity

Recent activity

Awards

See also

References

External links