Roadr App Is on a Mission To Cut Roadside Assistance Response Time in Half

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

Roadr App Is on a Mission To Cut Roadside Assistance Response Time in Half
Courtesy of Roadr

During the summer of 2019, Otiniel Ribeiro was having car issues that left him stranded on the side of the road, often having to wait several hours for AAA to show up.

“That experience left a bad taste in my mouth,” Ribeiro says.

And he isn’t alone. In the last few months, many AAA members have expressed how they also waited anywhere from an hour or more. And in some instances, roadside assistance was a no show.


All of which explains why Ribeiro teamed up with his brother Celso to create Roadr, a roadside assistance app on a mission to cut the response time for stranded drivers in half. The Ribeiro brothers launched its pilot program in Los Angeles earlier this month and they already have 3,500 downloads.

“Roadr is similar to other ride sharing apps that we currently have in the market,” Ribeiro tells dot.LA. “It’s the Uber for roadside assistance.”

And in that way, Ribeiro guarantees that any roadside service a person selects will be coming from within a 5 or 10 mile radius, cutting down the time it takes for providers to reach the driver.

Requesting service is similar to requesting an Uber or Lyft ride. First you select the type of service, confirm your pick up location, enter your vehicle and jot down any notes you want the service provider to know. Once the request is sent, the driver is able to track when the service provider is on the move along with the ability to call or text them.

The app is free to download for iOS and android users and currently the company offers a $100 yearly subscription which includes two free services of choice and a 30% discount off of each following service. For those that don’t want to commit to a full year, Roadr also provides consumers with an option to pay a monthly subscription fee of $9.99 that includes 1 free service as well as the 30% discount.

For now, people who use the app have access to all of Roadr’s emergency services which include: towing, a tire change, refueling, unlocking your car, getting a jump for your car and Ribeiro says Roadr will soon roll out an EV charging feature.

“We're trying to create a one stop shop,” Ribeiro says. “We're connecting the dots between the mechanics, service providers and insurance companies.”

With Roadr, drivers can also schedule specific services in advance. For example, let’s say you’re flying in from a business trip and you park your car at the airport with a nearly empty gas tank. Roadr offers a service in which a person can request a specialist to come and fill their gas tank for them at the airport upon their return from their trip.

Ribeiro says that this scheduling feature is to ensure drivers safety because now they don’t have to worry about having to drive to a gas station not knowing if they will make it.

The other demographic Roadr is hoping to serve is the uninsured. According to a 2021 report from the Insurance Research Council (IRC), 16.6% of California drivers are uninsured, placing the state as the 10th highest uninsured rate. That of course means that those drivers don’t qualify to receive free services from AAA, Geico and AllState, even in an emergency.

Which is why all you need to use Roadr’s services is a credit card to pay for any individual request that the app offers. And since the Roadr app uses geolocation, Ribeiro touts that unlike its competitors, a driver that is stuck in the mountains with no cell reception will have no issue requesting for service through the app as long as Roadr is servicing that city.

“The goal is to have (Roadr) service providers everywhere,” Ribeiro says. “So we're using this pilot to not only test it out and get direct feedback from our early users to then go full force and go nationwide and ultimately deploy to international markets as well.”

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LA Tech Week: Six LA-Based Greentech Startups to Know

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

LA Tech Week: Six LA-Based Greentech Startups to Know
Samson Amore

At Lowercarbon Capital’s LA Tech Week event Thursday, the synergy between the region’s aerospace industry and greentech startups was clear.

The event sponsored by Lowercarbon, Climate Draft (and the defunct Silicon Valley Bank’s Climate Technology & Sustainability team) brought together a handful of local startups in Hawthorne not far from LAX, and many of the companies shared DNA with arguably the region’s most famous tech resident: SpaceX.

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samsonamore@dot.la

LA Tech ‘Moves’: LeaseLock, Visgenx, PlayVS and Pressed Juicery Gains New CEOs

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

LA Tech ‘Moves’: LeaseLock, Visgenx, PlayVS and Pressed Juicery Gains New CEOs
LA Tech ‘Moves’:

“Moves,” our roundup of job changes in L.A. tech, is presented by Interchange.LA, dot.LA's recruiting and career platform connecting Southern California's most exciting companies with top tech talent. Create a free Interchange.LA profile here—and if you're looking for ways to supercharge your recruiting efforts, find out more about Interchange.LA's white-glove recruiting service by emailing Sharmineh O’Farrill Lewis (sharmineh@dot.la). Please send job changes and personnel moves to moves@dot.la.

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LeaseLock, a lease insurance and financial technology provider for the rental housing industry named Janine Steiner Jovanovic as chief executive officer. Prior to this role, Steiner Jovanovic served as the former EVP of Asset Optimization at RealPage.

Esports platform PlayVS hired EverFi co-founder and seasoned business leader Jon Chapman as the company’s chief executive officer.

Biotechnology company Visgenx appointed William Pedranti, J.D. as chief executive officer. Before joining, Mr. Pedranti was a partner with PENG Life Science Ventures.

Pressed Juicery, the leading cold-pressed juice and functional wellness brand welcomed Justin Nedelman as chief executive officer. His prior roles include chief real estate officer of FAT Brands Inc. and co-founder of Eureka! Restaurant Group.

Michael G. Vicari joined liquid biopsy company Nucleix as chief commercial officer. Vicari served as senior vice president of Sales at GRAIL, Inc.

Full-service performance marketing agency Allied Global Marketing promoted Erin Corbett to executive vice president of global partnership and marketing. Prior to joining Allied, Corbett's experience included senior marketing roles at Disney, Warner Bros. Studios, Harrah's Entertainment and Imagi Animation Studios.

Nuvve, a vehicle-to-grid technology company tapped student transportation and automotive sales and marketing executive David Bercik to lead the K-12 student transportation division.

This Week in ‘Raises’: Curri Scoops Up $42M, Mosaic Scores $26M

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

Raises
Image by Joshua Letona

A local logistics platform raised fresh funding to put toward product development, infrastructure and sales and marketing initiatives, while a San Diego-based fintech company closed its Series C funding round to expand its investment in AI which will empower high-growth SMB and mid-market finance leaders.

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Venture Capital

Curri, a Ventura-based logistics platform, raised a $42 million Series B funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners.

San Diego-based financial platform Mosaic raised a $26 million Series C funding round led by OMERS Ventures.

AHARA, a Los Angeles-based startup focused on providing personalized nutrition suggestions, raised a $10.25 million seed funding round led by Greycroft.

Per an SEC filing, San Diego-based developer of peptide therapeutics designed to assist in the treatment of autoimmune diseases and disorders selectIon raised $5 million in funding.

Miscellaneous

Los Angeles-based Sensydia, a company working on non-invasive cardiac diagnostics, said this morning that it has received $3 million in a NIH grant.

Raises is dot.LA’s weekly feature highlighting venture capital funding news across Southern California’s tech and startup ecosystem. Please send fundraising news to Decerry Donato (decerrydonato@dot.la).

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