By the time Auro hit full stride, it held something two global platforms badly wanted. The licences they needed to operate legally in Spain. A local company sat on the keys to a market Uber and Cabify were both trying to enter.
Alejandro Betancourt López had seen that friction coming. “Either they work with us, or we dominate the market,” he has said of the standoff. That’s the leverage of scarcity: where permits are limited and demand keeps climbing, whoever holds the most sets the terms.
The Cabify Fight
Cabify moved first. It struck an exclusivity deal that made Auro the backbone of its Spanish service. Auro supplied the drivers and cars that showed up under the Cabify brand, which handed Cabify instant capacity in several cities without building a licence portfolio of its own.
That arrangement didn’t last. Disputes over terms and the value of Auro’s assets ended up before the Spanish Constitutional Court. The court ruled in Dec. 2024 that Auro was free to walk away, and its licence portfolio was confirmed as a transferable asset its owner could steer as he liked.
The €220 Million Close
Interest peaked in Nov. 2022. Uber and Cabify both bid around €200 million to buy the company outright. Two of the world’s largest ride-hailing firms were chasing the same Spanish operator at the same moment.
The deal landed on 28 Feb. 2025. Uber bought a 30% stake in Auro for €220 million, made up of €180 million in equity and €40 million in debt. Permits once dumped at €5,000 were now built into one of Europe’s most consequential ride-hailing deals. The wager Alejandro Betancourt López placed a decade earlier had paid in full.