“Uber-ification” has been extended to many local segments, including hotels, restaurant reservations and promotions. How about roadside assistance?

Asserting that AAA and other roadside assistance services have outdated economic models and technology, local media and commerce vet Chris Spanos (AOL, Repair.com and Seniorchecked.com ) is leading a team launching Urgent.ly. The Washington D.C.- area company, which provides flat-rate repair truck assistance rather than charging annual insurance-like fees (i.e. $99), has done hundreds of service calls and is set to go nationwide. It completed its seed round of funding in March 2014, and is in the process of closing a larger, pre-series A round.

Like Uber, Urgent.ly has a free iOS App that contains a motorist profile and credit card information. Customers can easily tap their phones for a repair truck, and a live map lets them see where the trucks are at all times in the process. An additional feature is “FamilyView,” which allows drivers to link their app to a driving-age child, spouse or parent.

Spanos says 53 million customers are currently paying $70 to $130 for annual access to AAA, but most under-use use the services. The more serious issue with AAA is that customers often have to wait too long for a tow — some don’t get served within AAA’s 90 minute window. The problem? AAA only pays tow truck companies $20-25 and they have real mileage restrictions. The low payments mean that tow truck drivers will always give preference to cash calls from non AAA members. Urgent.ly’s on demand pricing takes care of that, says Spanos.

He also notes that people use AAA for a variety of services, of course, such as discounts to Amtrak, hotels, stores, and entertainment venues. “We may put in promotional discounts for auto-related services” at some point, Spanos notes. The key, however, is better transparency. “Transparency is the future of roadside,” he says.

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The market is enormous. Seniors are the No. 1 group for fraud and financial abuse, effecting one in five seniors, totaling some $2.6 billion per year with unscrupulous service providers committing an estimated 56 percent of the cases. This fraud is only expected to rise as 93 percent of seniors choose to stay in their homes, according to the American Geriatric Society, combined with the senior population doubling to 80 million over the next 30 years. The fact that a growing segment of this population is becoming increasingly reliant upon assistance from adult children, who often live considerable distances away, and have few suitable resources to guide their choice among service providers further complicates this already challenging situation.

The company is led by CEO Chris Spanos, who has a long history in the local market. Spanos formerly ran the Local and Vertical businesses at AOL. He has largely reassembled a team of AOL veterans who were previously responsible for turning AOL Local from a money-losing local business to one with margins above 40 percent.

The SeniorChecked directory includes a database of 3 million U.S. businesses (via Acxiom) across 24 service categories that are critical to the senior market. Businesses that have been SeniorChecked will appear first in the search results followed by the non-SeniorChecked listings. Consumers may request that businesses become SeniorChecked on the Web site, a clever marketing and lead generation angle.

Businesses and individual professional agents may become SeniorChecked for a small yearly fee of between $199 and $499. The verification process includes more than two-dozen different checks including dives into local state and county court records, criminal and sex offender checks among others.

Anyone who has dealt with services for an elder parent or grandparent seems to have a horror story or two about how hard it is to find trusted businesses and services for aging family members. Stories of fraud and abuse are a constant theme in the news, so we would expect businesses that clear the verification hurdle to see more qualified business.

Spanos would not disclose financing plans other than to say, “We are getting a good reception from the venture and angel community.” We’re not surprised to hear this given the team’s background. Timing is on SeniorChecked’s side as Redbeacon seemed to ignite Valley Fever last month, coming off winning the TechCrunch 50. That company closed a Series A Round of $7.5 million lead by Venrock and Mayfield, two prestigious Silicon Valley venture groups.

SeniorChecked is not alone in the local verification space. ServiceMagic is already exceeding $200 million in revenues annually.

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