Three young Madrilenians launch Belayers, an application that certifies technical knowledge to find reliable climbing partners. It already has over 500 users and events across Spain.
Climbing is experiencing unstoppable growth in the Community of Madrid, but finding someone trustworthy to share a rope with remains a headache. Three climbers from Madrid, Kento Reinoso, Germán Paredes, and Ignacio Villanueva, have created Belayers, an application that aims to be the digital 'safety belt' of this sport. Born in the climbing gyms of the capital, the tool already has over 500 registered users and organises events not only in Madrid but also in Galicia, Andalusia, the Canary Islands, and the Valencian Community.
An idea that emerged in the car, on the way back to Madrid
The story of Belayers began in the summer of 2025, during a trip back to Madrid from the Pyrenees. Kento Reinoso and a friend were discussing the difficulties of finding climbing partners. "To find people to climb with, there was only one app that was like Tinder, but it wasn't focused on the sporting activity," recalls Reinoso with a laugh. That conversation was the seed of a platform that, according to its creators, aims to structure a process that until now depended on improvisation or word of mouth in closed circles.
The project, available for free on Apple Store and Google Play, aims to eliminate the biggest barrier to entry in this discipline: finding a reliable climbing partner. "When you use a rope, it connects two people. If I am climbing, there is someone on the other side handling it; I need that person to survive," explains Reinoso. Therefore, unlike a simple notice board, Belayers introduces a mandatory filtering layer that validates users to ensure the necessary trust.
Technical tests to avoid scares on the wall
If someone wants to sign up for an outing that requires the use of ropes, the application requires them to pass detailed technical tests beforehand. "If you are already climbing and discover that your partner lacks certain knowledge, it's too late. You could get into a mess with a stranger," warns the creator. The endorsement behind these questionnaires is not an algorithm but the judgement of Kento Reinoso himself, a federated athlete of the Madrid Mountain Federation and a member of the Alpine Training Programme of the Community of Madrid. "We measure how well you do things, not how strong you are," he clarifies.
The phenomenon of climbing's rise has its epicentre in Madrid, which has become the strategic nucleus of the project. The region experiences a duality between traditional climbers and new users of urban centres. "A new sport has become popular which is private climbing gyms, and a public that pays 15 euros to enter," analyses Kento. "Many of those people do not want to go to the mountains, but Belayers serves both: from training on a Tuesday afternoon in Sainz de Baranda to climbing in the mountains on Saturday."
Self-funded and looking towards Europe
For now, this team of young people has built the platform in a self-funded manner, with an initial investment of no more than 800 euros and Ignacio Villanueva in charge of graphic design. Despite the fact that the process of publishing in the official stores was, in Reinoso's words, "like getting into a shredder" due to the demands of Apple and Google, the tool already has an active community. With the business plan already closed and waiting to attract private investment or public aid, these three Madrilenian climbers aim to digitalise the knot that connects the entire community, in a potential market of six million practitioners in Europe. For the Madrilenian climber, Belayers is already more than an app: it is the safety net that was missing.
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