Mayday: The Egyptian Startup Ushering Tech into Roadside Assistance

Every motorist’s perpetual inner-saboteur is a frantic fear of being stranded on the side of a road, middle of the night (although sunlight doesn’t quell it any better) and with a flat tire/car that won’t rev up. And while there’s no shortage of jokes and quips to make on the state of roadside assistance in Egypt, we’ll just settle with this: you might find yourself wishing you saved the contact info of ‘Ahmed Wensh’, Arabic for tow truck, that you saw graffitied on the side of the road.

With Egypt so eager to adopt tech into its culture - partially triggered by a global pandemic that has helped tech-enabled solutions break through the mainstream's threshold - Egyptian roadside assistance app Mayday has become a shining beacon for many drivers. The startup adopted an on-demand model - similar to ride-hailing and delivery apps - to offer roadside services such as tow trucks, trie changes, car jumpstarts and many more. 

“The model did change over time. Initially it was intended to be a subscription-based model. Then we started gestating more and more ideas, until landing at on-demand very early on,” Mohamed Aboelfotouh, Founding Partner & Head of Business Development at Mayday tells StartupScene. “Something to note is that this industry is still slowly being introduced to tech integration. So, successfully piercing our way through a market that would raise an eyebrow when learning about what we offer, and then having them very quickly adopt it, just brings me so much joy.”

Watch below as we speak to two of the startup’s founders about the journey behind Mayday, and how the service is streamlining roadside aid.