Legal tech company SnapDragon launches Swoop, an automated brand monitoring platform for brand owners, the first of its kind to be made publicly available. Swoop has been created to enable brands to wage war with online criminal gangs of counterfeiters and copycats across all industries.
In many markets, including toys, fake goods can be fatal or cause serious injury because counterfeits do not conform to the rigorous quality and safety standards genuine brands must comply with.
Profits from the sale of counterfeits can make their way into underground economies and frequently fuel illegal and criminal activity. Today, trade in fake goods makes up 2.5% of all world trade and is growing by 25% year on year. (Source: OECD)
Rachel Jones, Founder of SnapDragon, explains why she is driven to fight fakes online: “Our goal is to drastically reduce the global sale of counterfeit goods. Fake goods can destroy brands – I should know – it very nearly happened to me. I took action to fight back and have spent the last few years helping other companies do the same.
“Today we are automating that process. By enabling companies, large and small, to find fakes and by empowering them with the knowledge to take action, sales of counterfeit goods can be prevented, brands and the consumer can both be kept safe, businesses remain profitable and fund flow to criminal enterprises cut.”
The unique skills and specialist knowledge built up by SnapDragon’s team of linguists and IP experts over the course of three years of manual search for fakes and working in partnership with the world’s busiest online marketplaces has shaped the design of Swoop software.
Before SnapDragon, online brand protection was unaffordable for the majority and available only to luxury brands.
Swoop on the other hand is being offered as SaaS (software as a service) and SnapDragon aims to make the pricing affordable for SMEs.
According to Mandy Haeburn-Little, CEO of the Scottish Business Resillience Centre: “I am genuinely delighted to see a company as respected, nimble and visionary as SnapDragon emerge. Scotland has an excellent reputation for innovation and Rachel Jones is one of those rare and outstanding individuals prepared to stand up and safeguard the wider interests of the whole legitimate business community.
The software lets brands take control of their online reputation, helping them find counterfeits and copycat goods being sold online and subsequently report them for removal quickly and easily.
SnapDragon works with a diverse portfolio of clients in the UK and US including Harris Tweed, Morphsuits, Johnstons of Elgin, Glencairn, and Cheeky Chompers.