Startup Idea: Integrated Diamond Authenticity Testing Software

Startup idea to develop a software integrated with diamond tester devices to regularly track and verify the authenticity of loose diamonds or easily faked jewelry. The software should record the test outcomes for tracking and attributions.

I worked in jewelry retail for several years. There came a time when we did a 'trunk' show, or an event where a vendor left off a few hundred diamonds in their packages. Now, this was a couple million dollars in inventory. We had a diamond tester, and the event was slow, so I ended up testing the diamonds.

There were dozens rolled into their tight paper packages (it's a standard way of packaging loose diamonds). I encountered a one carat diamond that was fake within twenty minutes of the testing.

I was alarmed and kept continuing testing. Within two hours I had found another fake one carat diamond. (One carat diamonds are the most frequently stole loose stones- a lot of the fakes are one carat in size).

I called the regional manager and by the end of the day found three fake loose stones, total of about 50k in loss. These stones hadn't been test in months, years, if ever.

Jewelry should be regularly tracked, particularly jewelry that is easily faked (rolexes, loose stones, solitaires).

An integrated testing system to verify the fake stones would have caught this immediately, and the store AFTER the store where they were stolen would have been able to point fingers.

Sales clerks are not reliable, but integrated testing means that they can't fake it...the tester reads the legitimacy of the diamond and should record it.