Luis de la Portilla leads eTaxi, a company that was born in 2009 in Madrid, but was re-established in Lanzarote in 2014 to take advantage of the benefits of the Canary Islands Special Zone (ZEC). eTaxi is dedicated to managing the mobility of all types of vehicles, through GPS technology. Today it employs five workers in the Canary Islands, two in the peninsula and four in Latin America.
Among other advantages, the ZEC, whose main objective is to diversify the economy of the archipelago, guarantees companies a reduced corporate tax of 4%. To do this, they must employ at least 5 people if they are in Gran Canaria or Tenerife. This requirement is reduced to 3 employees in the case of Lanzarote and the other islands.
Ekonomus has spoken with Luis de la Portilla, in the second of a series of interviews with entrepreneurs who, thanks to the ZEC, have created economic activity on the island.
Can you briefly explain what your business consists of?
Etaxi is dedicated to managing the mobility of all types of vehicles, both public and private, through GPS technology. We manage the movement of fleets of taxis, buses, trucks... Our main clients are taxi associations and cooperatives, which we provide with all the tools and technological resources to optimize and digitally manage their services, as well as relationships with their users.
When did you start the company?
The business was based in Madrid (the original company was founded in 2009), but when we saw the advantages of the ZEC zone, we created a new company based in Lanzarote in 2014.
Why did you choose Lanzarote?
We registered the company in Lanzarote because one of my main investment partners lives on the island, and also, being a non-capital island, the ZEC requires less investment and personnel.
What are the main benefits that the ZEC brings to your business?
As a technology company, we are still in the crossing the desert phase, because the benefits are not yet great and have always been reinvested in our growth. From that point of view, we have not yet benefited much from the ZEC, but we believe that it has enormous potential that has not been sold well. It needs to be taken advantage of more and the official bodies need to make it more known. The conditions in Madeira are similar to those of the ZEC, but there they have taken it more seriously.
I am a great defender of the ZEC, I believe that it is the best tool to diversify the economy of the Canary Islands. It is a very easy system and offers you great legal coverage, because once the body that manages it tells you that your activity falls within the ZEC zone, it gives you very important legal certainty.
We have delegated companies in the Dominican Republic, Chile, Uruguay and Colombia, to which we provide the technology and they distribute it in each country
What could be done better in the ZEC area?
It is a model that must be preserved but also has to be adapted. For example, there are companies based in the Canary Islands that are dedicated to e-commerce for the sale of products and for a while it seemed that they could only join the ZEC if the product of the sales passes through the Canary Islands. That is unfeasible, because if those companies buy products in China and sell them in Peru, it makes no sense for the product to pass through the Canary Islands.
And those companies have many places in the world to go, if you create legal uncertainty the effect of the ZEC goes away. That has to be looked at very closely.
How many workers do you have?
We have five employees residing in the Canary Islands, two in the peninsula and four in Latin America, where we have several businesses, although the bulk of operations are managed from Lanzarote.
Is it easy to find workers with high technological preparation in the Canary Islands?
There is a problem in Lanzarote, and in general in Spain, there is no qualified labor, because they are very specific jobs. Technology evolves so quickly that there is no university that can keep graduates up to date. Many experts, once out of university, are self-taught and finding them is very difficult, often you have to look at profiles from all over the world.
Technology advances very quickly and you have to adapt. Our platform, for example, started with one language and along the way we had to completely change it several times. Systems appear that are much more efficient, that reduce costs, that handle more information. Our platform handles billions of data because they include location coordinates and if a new language comes out, you have to assume it, because it makes operations much faster.
How did you find out about the ZEC?
I knew about the ZEC many years ago, but at first it was not very attractive, because the tax paid on dividends practically neutralized the advantages it had of low taxation. Then that changed and it became much more attractive.
Where are your main clients?
Especially in the peninsula, where we serve 50 radio taxi fleets, but also in Gran Canaria and Tenerife. Many of our clients are small taxi companies, of up to 40 vehicles, in towns of between 15,000 and 75,000 inhabitants. Our platform is very adapted to the rural environment. We adapt our platform to the needs of each company. We start from a common structure that covers 90% of the needs. The other 10% is used to personalize the platform for each client.
We also work with Latin America, where we have delegated companies in the Dominican Republic, Chile, Uruguay and Colombia, to which we provide the technology and they distribute it in each country.