Spain’s private-hire market grew up under a cap. From 2015, the country allowed one VTC license, the permit a car needs to carry paying passengers with a driver, for every 30 taxi licenses.
Alejandro Betancourt López’s bet on those permits came before the big platforms needed them at scale. Auro, the license portfolio his résumé says he helped found and holds as main shareholder, was assembled while permits changed hands cheaply.
2015 to 2022: Alejandro Betancourt López and a Capped Market
“We were confident, but were not certain that this will happen. It was a projection,” he said in an October 2020 interview, describing the decision to buy licenses before Uber and Cabify set up in Spain at full size. Taxi owners treated the extra permits as an afterthought at the time. “People were selling this license for nothing,” Alejandro Betancourt told 1883 Magazine, recalling purchases made from taxi license holders who saw no use for them. Auro then struck a deal with one of the large platforms and later became an operator itself. By October 2020 it held more than 2,000 licenses, mostly in Madrid, he said.
Uber and Cabify were both bidding for the company by November 2022, and the offers valued Auro at about €200 million, according to 1883 Magazine, which reported that Alejandro Betancourt López and his partners began buying licenses before Uber had a meaningful presence in the country. The magazine also notes that he founded the O’Hara Administration investment group in 2014.
2023 to 2026: Who Holds the Permits Now
On June 8, 2023, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in a case brought by Prestige and Limousine against the Barcelona metropolitan authority, referred by the high court of Catalonia. Capping licenses by the 1:30 ratio hadn’t been shown to serve transport management or environmental goals, the court found, and shielding taxi revenue wasn’t a valid reason on its own. EU law still lets authorities require a separate, nondiscriminatory license for VTC services.
Moove Cars, Auro and Vecttor now hold 60% of Spain’s VTC licenses, according to the Sindicato Libre de Transporte. Uber owns 30% of both Moove Cars and Alejandro Betancourt López’s Auro, while Cabify owns Vecttor. VTC licenses, unlike taxi permits, carry no limit on how many a single holder can accumulate.
The Catalan regional government is processing rules that could restrict urban licenses further, and a permit in the city costs about €75,000, compared with roughly €180,000 in Madrid. Bolt has also objected to Cabify’s 2018 request for 8,500 new permits, warning it could lift Vecttor’s share of active licenses to 70%.