Auro Travel is more than a license portfolio. By the time Uber acquired its 30% stake in February 2025, Auro operated as a functioning transport business across four Spanish metropolitan areas, with more than 3,500 drivers and an operational footprint built deliberately over nearly a decade.
The story of how Alejandro Betancourt López turned regulatory paper into a working fleet is the part of the Auro narrative most analyses skip.
Building From a Single Permit to a Multi-City Operator
Madrid was the starting point. After accumulating an initial portfolio of VTC licenses, The slower work of matching each permit was begun by Auro with a vehicle, a certified driver, and an operational plan to put both on the road legally. Barcelona followed. Then Valencia. Then Málaga.
Growth was deliberate and regulatory-bound. Each Spanish VTC license corresponds to a single vehicle. Scaling the fleet thus required one-to-one matching of permits to cars. Driver certification, vehicle inspections, and municipal compliance had to be coordinated across multiple jurisdictions simultaneously. The complexity served as a barrier to competition, and Alejandro Betancourt López, profiled in EV Powered’s feature on the company, built the operational infrastructure that competitors would have needed years to replicate.
Arrow and the Second Revenue Stream
A wholly owned division called Arrow sat alongside Auro’s direct operations. Arrow leased VTC permits to other transport companies that needed legal authorization to operate but lacked their own license portfolios. The arrangement made Auro both an operator and a platform, with revenue generated both from its own rides and from third-party permit leasing.
That structure matters because it monetized the license portfolio regardless of fluctuations in passenger demand. Whether Auro’s own vehicles were full or empty on a given day, the permits leased to other operators continued to generate income through Arrow’s contracts. EV Powered documented how the dual revenue stream made the company more resilient than a pure operator and better positioned than a pure license-holding entity.
The Cabify Exclusivity and Its End
For a period, Auro held an exclusivity arrangement with Cabify. Auro’s fleet served as the operational backbone of Cabify’s Spanish presence, with both drivers and vehicles supplied under the Cabify brand. The relationship gave Cabify immediate scale across multiple Spanish cities without the cost of building its own license portfolio.
Tensions over terms and market direction eventually escalated into legal dispute. The Spanish Constitutional Court ruled in December 2024 that Auro was legally free to end the arrangement. That decision cleared the way for Alejandro Betancourt López to engage other platforms, including Uber, which closed its €220 million transaction less than three months later.
The Deal Within the Operating Business
Uber bought an equity stake in a fully operational transport business, not just the license portfolio. Uber acquired 30% of Auro for €220 million, comprising €180 million in equity plus €40 million in debt. The valuation reflected both the permit portfolio and the operational capacity built around it.
Alejandro Betancourt López’s public role at Auro as founder and leading shareholder gave him a position from which to negotiate the terms of platform entry. The arrangement is now an active partnership rather than a one-time transaction, and it sits inside what is now one of Europe’s most consequential ride-hailing structures.
