Indoor Climbing Tracking Startup Lizcore Pivots to Safety as It Secures Pre-Seed Funding

Indoor climbing can be a challenging sport to monitor. This is precisely why the Spanish startup Lizcore attracted the attention of TechCrunch at MWC earlier this year. The duo of co-founders, led by CEO Edgar Casanovas Lorente, a former climbing instructor and guide turned entrepreneur, showcased hardware designed to bring the social gamification that various sports have enjoyed through wearables and activity trackers to climbing gyms.

Lizcore’s system requires climbers to wear a lightweight fabric NFC bracelet to track their activities, eliminating the need for bulky mobile devices while climbing. The bracelet pairs with smart base units and holds—capturing route statistics and allowing climbers to review their progress on Lizcore’s app.

Fast forward a few months, and the startup has successfully secured a pre-seed funding round to commercialize its hardware. To date, they have raised approximately €600,000 (around $630,000 at current exchange rates) from various investors and business angels, including Startup Wise Guys, and supported by state assistance through an interest-free loan of €200,000, alongside some grants.

Recently, they’ve signed their first local client, a climbing gym named Drac de Pedra in Rubí, Catalonia, where a demo of their route tracking technology took place earlier this month. “They want the full installation. But they will start with 30 routes, which means 10 devices,” co-founder and CTO Marçal Juan informed TechCrunch.

While digitizing indoor climbing remains central to Lizcore’s mission, the team is also focused on finalizing a safety device for autobelays. Juan mentioned their goal to complete this within 6–12 months, acknowledging the common challenges in hardware development, humorously agreeing that “hardware is hard” and admitting to some reliability issues with their route tracking system they are currently addressing.

Lizcore, originally a two-member team, has expanded to nine as they aim to showcase the system, refine the hardware, and attract more gyms to adopt their solutions.

NFC + AI = Enhanced Autobelay Safety

For those unfamiliar with climbing, autobelays are devices that can be installed at the tops of taller climbing routes, allowing climbers to ascend without needing a partner to provide belay support. Each unit includes retractable webbing connected to a carabiner that climbers must securely clip to their harness before they begin their ascent.

This system functions safely when utilized properly. However, there have been unfortunate cases where climbers forget to clip themselves into the autobelay prior to climbing, resulting in severe falls.

Another significant risk arises when climbers clip the carabiner to the incorrect part of their harness. Consequently, gyms usually require climbers to obtain a credential—often in the form of a card clipped to their harness—to prove their understanding of all safety protocols related to autobelays. Monitoring this process necessitates staff presence to continuously check climbers’ credentials, which often does not occur. This oversight poses a constant risk for climbing gyms, exposing individuals unfamiliar with the equipment to potential dangers.

Lizcore believes it has developed an intelligent solution to enhance autobelay safety and help gyms mitigate these risks and their associated legal liabilities. Their approach involves enabling credentials to be stored digitally on the NFC band worn by climbers for route tracking. Using Lizcore’s system, climbers without the required digital credential will be unable to access the autobelays, as a smart locking mechanism will not release the webbing/rope until the appropriate credential is presented.

The system will also include cameras alongside Lizcore base units—the same hardware utilized for route tracking and displaying grades—analyzing footage of climbers at the start of the routes using AI software to determine whether they are properly clipped into their harnesses, according to Juan.

An additional camera aimed at the climbing route will be programmed to identify whether climbers are ascending without being clipped in, triggering an alarm if this occurs.

“Our primary focus now is on this autobelay safety device,” he emphasized, noting the annual fatalities resulting from autobelay mishaps. “The safety device complements the route tracking hardware… So we offer safety alongside gamification.”

From a hardware perspective, Lizcore’s autobelay safety system is being designed to be compatible with various brands of autobelay machines, including newer models utilizing retractable ropes instead of webbing.

Getting the AI software right is another major priority for the team to ensure it can effectively and autonomously detect whether climbers are correctly secured or not.

“The machine learning model will be capable of tracking whether the climber is entirely safe. However, we do not expect to achieve 100% accuracy — rather, we aim to provide various levels and stages of security,” Juan stated, recalling the credentialing aspect of the system as a significant part of the solution.

“Currently, the demand from gyms is primarily focused on safety,” he added. “While we are creating a necessity for digitizing and gamifying indoor climbing, the most urgent need remains in accident prevention, as such incidents are a significant risk and lives are at stake.”