Fiara reinvents the Monte de Piedad with an online jewelry appraisal 'app'

In times of crisis and economic difficulties, people often talk about Pawn Shops (Montes de Piedad). These institutions offer money in exchange for valuable objects such as watches or jewelry, which can be recovered within a certain time by paying a modest interest. This loan system has been in effect for centuries and has established itself as a quick and effective method to obtain economic liquidity without having to sell or undersell precious objects. Now Mutter Ventures has launched Fiara, a 2.0 version of that ancestral system, as it digitizes the entire process through an application and offers an online appraisal service and also home collection of objects.

The startup launched in mid-2020 and has been operating for more than five months. "We bet on Fiara because we believe there is a lot of room for improvement in the digitalization of luxury item appraisals," says co-founder and president of Mutter Ventures, Christian Rodríguez. "What until now had to be done by going to the office of a financial institution or a Pawn Shop, can now be done from home," he points out.

The operation of this startup is simple. It works through a mobile application and you only have to upload photographs and data of the valuable object you want to sell and the company will make an appraisal within 24 hours. If the offer is accepted, a home collection service will pick up the object and it will be kept in custody until you want to recover it.

Mutter Ventures, the company that developed Fiara, is a corporate builder from Barcelona promoted by Christian Rodríguez, Guillermo Gaspart, Carlos Galí and Alfonso Le Monnier, which has already created other startups such as Bulldoc, Byepack or Groenlandia. The initial investment has been 200,000 euros and now Fiara has three full-time employees, but marketing or design functions, among others, are carried out by the teams at Mutter Ventures.

To carry out the steps of the appraisal, collection and custody process of the products, Fiara has the support of different companies. MRW for shipments and collections; Aravis and Instapak for express services in Barcelona and Madrid; HDI, Europ Assistance and ERGO for transport and shipping insurance, and Loomis for the custody of luxury items.

During the first months of activity, the startup has carried out 380 operations and appraisal requests have been 70% for luxury watches ---from brands such as Rolex, Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe--- and 30% for jewelry. "Fiara is born from the need that owners of luxury pieces often have to obtain liquidity without parting with a possession that has value," says the firm's business development manager, Albert Castella.