Only a few investors looked at the highly regulated taxi market in Spain in 2017 and saw opportunities. Ride-hailing services faced high barriers to entry as vehicle rental licenses were strictly limited and heavily protected by incumbent taxi companies.
Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López saw something different: an opportunity to create value, precisely because the hurdles were so high.
This contrarian bet led to the creation of Auro Travel, now Spain’s largest private rental vehicle fleet operator. What started as a license acquisition play has grown into a company that reportedly received takeover offers from Uber and Cabify worth €200 million in late 2022. The trip provides a case study of how regulatory arbitrage, when executed with patience and precision, can create significant shareholder value.
Reading the market before it existed
Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López had been watching Uber’s expansion in Europe and Latin America with interest. However, Spain presented a unique conundrum. Unlike the United States or the United Kingdom, where ride-hailing companies were able to launch without relatively low regulatory hurdles, Spanish law required operators to have a specific license for each vehicle offering private transportation services. Madrid alone had around 8,000 such licenses and their number was fixed.
“We foresaw a time like today when these licenses would be very desirable,” explained Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López. “It was a high-risk bet because we weren’t sure if market conditions would change in our favor, but we thought it was an important bet.”
The logic was clear, even if the execution was not. If global ride-hailing giants ever set foot in Spain – and there was every reason to believe they would – they would need these licenses to operate. Someone who has a critical mass of approvals would be a valuable asset, whether as an operator or as a supplier to larger platforms.
Auro began systematically collecting licenses. Many permit holders at the time viewed them as secondary assets with limited individual value that could be purchased at reasonable prices. Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López moved before the market realized what it saw coming. “The advantage we had was the vision before it was implemented in Spain and we acquired these licenses before the market consolidated,” he noted. “The cost of entry or the barriers to entry were much higher for them because they came late.”
The Arrow Strategy: Turn Licenses into Infrastructure
Owning 2,000 rideshare licenses opened up options, but the question remained: How best to monetize them? Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López and his team developed a two-pronged approach that would prove crucial to Auro’s growth. Instead of simply acting as a direct competitor to Uber and Cabify, the company created a division called Arrow to lease licenses to the same multinational platforms.
The model was elegant in its simplicity. Arrow would license Auro’s rideshare permits to companies wanting to operate in major Spanish cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Malaga. This allowed global ride-hailing apps to expand their presence in Spain without having to undertake the complex and time-consuming process of acquiring licenses themselves. For Auro, this meant stable revenue regardless of which consumer-facing app ultimately won market share.
“Shortly after Auro was founded, the company created a division called Arrow to lease its licenses to partner companies such as Uber and Cabify that want to have a presence in key Spanish markets,” The American Reporter reported. Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López had effectively positioned his company as infrastructure and not just another app competing for drivers.
The approach reflected a broader investment philosophy. “It’s the way you position yourself in an industry that can generate that margin and create that value for yourself or for the investors,” said Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López in an interview in 2025. He drew parallels to historical changes in the oil industry: “In the beginning it was the refineries that made the profit. Then the oil became scarce, and then the value was with the producer. Then came shipping, when the war came – who had the means He had to transport goods and made his fortune.”
Auro’s licensing portfolio worked similarly. While ride-hailing apps waged costly battles over customer retention and driver recruitment, Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López controlled a resource they all needed. The company grew, employing around 100 people and coordinating activities for over 3,000 drivers.
Building the fleet according to the licenses required significant capital. Auro secured more than $10 million in a funding round in 2019 with investors including GP Bullhound, FJ Labs and several Spanish entrepreneurs with experience in the transportation industry. By 2020, the company had assembled over 2,000 vehicles – Spain’s largest private car fleet – ready for use once pandemic restrictions were lifted.
From supplier to operator
The pandemic has put Auro’s model to a severe test. As travel demand plummeted, the company’s 2,000 vehicles sat idle. “We have more than 2,000 vehicles, all parked because there is no demand for travel,” admitted Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López during this time. “Managing our resources in this challenging environment is our primary focus at this time.”
But the downtime presented opportunity. Auro used the break to develop its own consumer-focused mobile app, transforming the company from a pure B2B license provider into a direct competitor. Launched in late 2021, the app allows riders to book Auro vehicles without rerouting via Uber or Cabify. “I see many ways we can grow,” Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López said at the time. “We are currently in the process of launching our own app, which will give us the opportunity to be operators ourselves and not just give licenses to other operators.”
The dual model – supplying competitors and competing with them at the same time – created leverage. When Auro’s fleet of 1,100 drivers threatened to switch from Cabify to Uber or Bolt in early 2022, the Spanish unicorn was in danger of losing ground in its home market. Reuters reported that the move could push Cabify to second place in Madrid, where it operated for a decade. Auro had become strong enough to reshape competitive dynamics simply by choosing which platform to prioritize.
This leverage aroused great interest in taking over. Both Uber and Cabify reportedly made offers worth around €200 million to acquire Auro in November 2022. The offers confirmed Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López’s original thesis: licenses acquired before they were ready for the market had become extremely valuable assets.
Lessons in Regulatory Arbitrage
Auro’s career exemplifies the principles that Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López applies throughout his portfolio. Recognizing where value will move within an industry – and positioning capital there before others notice the shift – has boosted returns at Hawkers, its sunglasses business, and in previous energy investments.
“Where the value creation is going to be next in the chain, we want to be there first,” he explained. “Anything we see that we’re going to be where the revenue is going to be, we want to be first there and have that vision.”
For Auro, this meant viewing regulatory restrictions not as obstacles but as moats. Spain’s strict licensing system, which deterred many potential market participants, became the basis for a company worth nine figures for global competitors eager to buy in.
