DHTA is positioning itself at the intersection of sports, AI, and digital identity. What problem in the sports industry made you realize there was a need for “trusted digital twins” for athletes?
Luca Bona: The turning point came early in our conversations within the Juventus Forward Innovation program, which we’re proud to be part of. One of the world’s most recognized sports brands, with one of the most valuable athlete rosters in football – and yet no technical infrastructure existed to let them activate player likenesses digitally in a way that was consent-verified, provenance-stamped, and legally defensible. The athletes had no control. The club had no traceability. And generative AI was already making photorealistic synthetic content trivially easy to produce. That gap – between what AI could generate and what anyone could actually trust – is where DHTA was born.
We are not building another content tool. We are building a new category: consent-based, C2PA-certified AI digital twins. Athlete-approved synthetic personas with cryptographic provenance baked in from creation. The sports industry has a $417 billion opportunity in athlete IP monetization. DHTA is building the infrastructure layer that will make it trustworthy.
AI-generated athlete content is becoming more common, but so are concerns around deepfakes and misuse. How is DHTA balancing innovation with ethics, authenticity, and player protection?
Luca Bona: This question sits at the heart of what my co-founder and CTO, Sebastian Sylwan, has spent his career solving. Sebastian comes from Weta Digital, where he spent more than a decade pushing the boundaries of synthetic human rendering on productions including Avatar. Alongside him is our third co-founder, Michael Shantzis, whose contributions to visual effects research earned him an Academy Award.
When we began designing DHTA’s architecture together, we started from one non-negotiable principle: no digital twin can exist without a signed athlete consent protocol. This isn’t just a policy choice — it’s a core technical requirement embedded directly into the foundation of the platform.
Every asset we generate will carry C2PA certification — the emerging global standard for content provenance and authenticity. In practice, that means each file contains a cryptographically verifiable chain of custody: who created it, when it was created, under whose authorization, and with which model. Athletes will also have granular control over how their digital twin can be used — defining permissions by brand, format, territory, and timeframe.
Sebastian’s background has shaped how we approach this technology. We don’t see synthetic humans as a novelty; we see them as a responsibility. At DHTA, player protection isn’t a communications stance — it’s foundational to how the platform is designed and built.
You’ve spoken publicly about Europe needing to build AI-native companies instead of simply AI-enhanced businesses. What role do you believe European startups can play in shaping the future of ethical AI globally?
Luca Bona: Europe has regulatory clarity that the US doesn’t – the AI Act, GDPR, and a culture of treating data as a rights issue rather than a resource to extract. That’s a structural advantage if you build it into your product from day one rather than bolting on compliance later. The companies that will define global standards for AI provenance, consent infrastructure, and synthetic media governance are more likely to come from Europe than from Silicon Valley — because we’ve been forced to think about these problems structurally.
What Europe lacks is the infrastructure to scale those companies fast enough, and the narrative confidence to say: we’re not just regulating AI, we want to build the best version of it. DHTA is one proof point that AI-native, ethics-first architecture can win commercially – not despite the constraints, but because of them. Sebastian and I are both deeply European in how we approach this: technology earns trust, it doesn’t assume it. The global market for trusted AI is enormous. Europe should own it.
Sports organizations are increasingly looking for new digital revenue streams. How can AI-powered athlete identities change fan engagement and monetization over the next five years?
Luca Bona: Our work with the Juventus Forward Innovation program is already showing us what this will look like in practice. One of the most globally followed clubs in football, activating player IP across dozens of markets, in multiple languages, with fan communities that expect personalized, always-on digital engagement – the demand is real and the existing infrastructure can’t serve it. What DHTA is building will change that equation entirely. Athlete-approved synthetic personas will be deployable at scale: personalized fan experiences, multilingual content localization, interactive digital collectibles, branded integrations that won’t require the athlete on set.
Over the next five years, we see three major revenue streams converging. The first is direct fan engagement through hyper-personalized content and interactive digital twin experiences. The second is brand licensing powered by AI-generated athlete endorsements built on explicit consent and verifiable provenance. The third is certified digital collectibles, where the digital twin itself becomes the authenticated asset. The clubs and leagues that invest in this infrastructure now — with robust consent and provenance frameworks in place — will own the next generation of fan monetization. Those that don’t risk being disintermediated by the platforms that do.
DHTA is attending Web Summit Vancouver 2026 as part of the Italian innovation ecosystem. What are your key goals at the summit, and what kinds of partnerships or conversations are you hoping to build in North America?
Luca Bona: Web Summit Vancouver is DHTA’s North American debut, and the timing is intentional. We are relocating our headquarters to Vancouver this year, and Sebastian and I are building the Canadian operation as our primary base for the next growth phase. Our goals at the summit are specific: connect with sports tech investors who understand category-creation bets, open conversations with North American leagues and talent agencies about early partnership opportunities, and establish DHTA in the Canadian and US tech narrative as the European deep-tech team building the consent and provenance infrastructure layer for synthetic athlete media.
Sebastian’s and Mickey’s backgrounds in Hollywood visual effects, combined with my experience building and exiting companies within the European startup ecosystem, give us a distinct profile in this market. We are not building an AI wrapper, nor are we a media company. We are building foundational infrastructure — currently in active proof-of-concept development with Juventus Forward Innovation — designed to scale globally from a North American base.We are part of the Italian delegation at Web Summit, selected by ITA Trade Agency as one of four Italian startups — which gives us a strong entry point into the European-North American investment corridor. If you’re in Vancouver May 11–14 and work in sports tech, AI identity, or synthetic media, come find us.
Meet Luca Bona, Co-Founder, DHTA at booth #E154 and startup island #PS-03 at Websummit Vancouver 2026. Brought to you by the Italian Trade Agency (ITA) in Canada. Visit vancouver.websummit.com for more. Browse the Italy @ Web Summit Vancouver 2026 brochure or visit the ITA portal and Machines Italia website to learn more about the delegation.
