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Uber paid €220 million in February 2025 for a 30% stake in Auro New Transport Concept, a Madrid-based company most people outside Spain’s transport sector had never heard of.
The deal valued Auro’s equity at €180 million and included €40 million in assumed debt. It ranks among Uber’s largest single-country investments in Europe.
The transaction didn’t materialize overnight. Alejandro Betancourt López, who co-founded Auro, had spent nearly eight years accumulating the one asset no ride-hailing app can function without in Spain: VTC licenses.
Those permits, purchased for a fraction of their eventual worth, gave Auro control over more than 3,000 licenses and a fleet of 3,500 employed drivers across Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and Málaga. By the time Uber came to the table, Auro was the only partner that could offer scale.
What a VTC License Is and Why It Matters?
Spain regulates ride-hailing through a permit system called VTC (vehículo de turismo con conductor), which requires a government-issued license for every vehicle operating on a platform like Uber or Cabify.
A 2015 law under Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy capped the number of VTC permits at one for every 30 taxi licenses. The cap created an artificial ceiling on supply.
Each license became a scarce commodity. Regions handled enforcement differently: Catalonia and Valencia imposed mandatory 15-minute advance booking windows that destroyed the instant-request appeal of app-based services.
Uber left both regions entirely. Madrid took a different path, allowing existing VTC licenses to operate for urban trips under a more permissive framework.
That regional divide created a concentrated opportunity for anyone willing to stockpile permits in the markets where ride-hailing could actually function.
How Alejandro Betancourt Lopez Built Spain’s Ride-hailing Fleet?
The License Play That Built Auro
Alejandro Betancourt López recognized the Spanish regulatory bottleneck before most institutional investors were paying attention.
“When we started the traveling business in Spain, Auro, we knew that Uber was going to come to Spain and we started accumulating all the licenses,” he told ABC Money.
Auro was founded in 2017, backed by €10 million in early funding from GP Bullhound and FJ Labs, with co-founders Félix Ruiz and Zaryn Dentzel.
The company’s first move was buying VTC permits from taxi operators who saw little value in them. Licenses that changed hands for roughly €5,000 each would later anchor a company valued at hundreds of millions.
Betancourt López described the bet in a 2020 interview: “It was a high-risk bet, because we were confident, but were not certain that this will happen. It was a projection.”
The math behind the thesis, as he later outlined in a detailed account of his positioning method, was straightforward. Spain’s 1:30 ratio law had capped the total license pool.
Demand from platforms like Uber and Cabify would only grow as urban populations expanded and personal car ownership leveled off. Whoever held the permits held the keys.
From License Holder to Full-Stack Operator
Auro didn’t stop at accumulation. The company built its own driver workforce, hired 200 headquarters staff, and developed a proprietary ride-request app.
It signed an exclusivity agreement with Cabify in 2018, locking its fleet into a single platform in exchange for a guaranteed revenue floor.
That exclusivity deal also constrained Auro’s upside. Cabify had access to the fleet, but Auro couldn’t work with competitors.
The constraint broke open in December 2024, when Spain’s Constitutional Court overturned a lower court ruling that had supported Cabify’s exclusivity claim. The decision freed Auro to negotiate with any platform it chose.
Uber moved quickly. The 18-month negotiation that followed produced the €220 million deal, with Uber calling Spain a “priority market” and citing the acquisition as proof of its commitment to the country.
Co-founder Félix Ruiz described it bluntly: “It was probably the most difficult sale, but it’s the one where I’ve made the most money.”
A Regulatory Bet, Not a Technology Bet
The Auro story diverges from the standard ride-hailing startup narrative in one respect: where the competitive advantage sits.
Most mobility startups compete on software, pricing, or brand. Auro competed on permits. Its moat was legal and finite, an attribute he has identified as a recurring theme across his most successful deals.
Alejandro Betancourt López has described his investment approach as people-first and conviction-driven.
“There are 10,000 good ideas out there, but not all of them come to be a successful venture because there are many factors that make them successful,” he said in a 2023 interview. “For me, the most important one, the critical one, is the people.”
At Auro, the people bet was paired with a structural bet on regulation. The license pool wouldn’t expand. The platforms would need someone who already held a large share of it.
The company now generates approximately €9 million in EBITDA with its fleet of 3,500+ drivers across four Spanish cities.
Auro has also committed to converting its entire fleet to electric or eco-emission vehicles, with 100 Tesla Model 3s already incorporated through a partnership with Tesla and Uber.
After the Deal
Uber’s 30% stake gives it access to Spain’s largest VTC fleet without the regulatory headaches of building one from scratch. For Auro, the deal validates a thesis that was eight years in the making and provides capital to expand operations.
The broader signal concerns where value sits in regulated mobility markets. Platforms can scale software globally; they can’t scale permits.
Every country with a licensing regime creates the same structural opportunity for operators willing to acquire the supply side before demand catches up.
Alejandro Betancourt López bet that Spain’s ride-hailing future would be determined by whoever controlled the licenses, a conviction he has credited to persistent mental rehearsal and scenario planning. The Uber check suggests he was right.