How a Mother's School-Run Problem Became Zum, a $1.7 Billion School Transport Startup

How Ritu Narayan Built Zum Into a $1.7 Billion School Transport Company

Ritu Narayan was overseeing a billion-dollar digital business at eBay when she hit a household logistics wall: her children, then 3 and 8, needed reliable rides to school and daycare in Bay Area traffic. Her private school had no bus, part-time help was expensive and unreliable, and Narayan saw echoes of her mother, a teacher in India who had left her job for the same reason. Rather than quit her career or become the family driver, she co-founded Zum in 2015 with her brothers Vivek and Abhishek Garg.

Zum is a technology-driven school transport company based in Redwood City, California. It buys and maintains buses and smaller student vehicles, leases parking, hires drivers, and equips vehicles with tablets and GPS connected to an app for parents and teachers. The company uses artificial intelligence to analyze existing routes and reduce time, miles and cost. During the pandemic, Narayan shifted the business from a Bay Area ride-share service called Liftee to a full platform for school districts.

The scale is now substantial: Zum has raised $430 million, reached a $1.7 billion valuation and generated $333 million in 2025 revenue, up 35 percent from 2024. Some 5,000 schools across 18 states pay for the service. The U.S. spends nearly $40 billion a year on school transportation, a market Zum argues is still heavily dependent on traditional yellow buses, faxes and phone trees.

Oakland Unified School District is the clearest public example. A fleet and route analysis presented as part of a five-year contract signed in 2021 reduced the district's fleet from 236 to 193 buses and saved an estimated $3.5 million a year, according to the company. District transportation director Kimberly Raney, a former FedEx manager, describes a previous system built on fax machines and 30-minute delays; she says that changed after Oakland signed a five-year Zum contract worth $11.2 million annually in 2024.

Why Zum's District-First Model Is Winning Over Oakland and Investors

The Business Is Contracted Revenue, Not Just Routing Software

Zum's investors emphasize a harder-to-copy element than the app: long-term school district contracts. Ulu Ventures co-founder Miriam Rivera, an early backer, points to guaranteed revenue over five to ten years as unusually attractive for a startup. Sequoia partner Bryan Schreier, who led the 2017 Series A, argues the model is protected from AI disruption because AI is the foundation of the operation, not an outside threat. That matters because Zum owns physical assets such as vehicles and parking and employs drivers, which makes expansion capital-intensive but also difficult for software-only competitors to replicate.

What the Oakland Numbers Explain

Zum's pitch to districts is that contracts may cost more upfront, but route optimization can cut the number of vehicles required and deliver long-term savings. In Oakland, the company says its analysis reduced the district's buses from 236 to 193 and saved $3.5 million annually. That is the core sales story for budget-constrained public school systems: pay more for a managed platform, but operate fewer buses and eliminate manual coordination.

The Shift From Liftee to District Platform

Zum did not start as a bus operator. The original Liftee model was a shared ride service for children with extra driver-safety steps, and it gained around 30 private school contracts in the Bay Area. But growth was slow; at that time, a competitor had raised more than $12 million and completed 60,000 trips, while Zum had raised less than $1 million and completed about 20,000 trips. The pandemic school closures gave Narayan an opening to rebuild the company around public school districts, where the provider can deploy vehicles and track them digitally.

What Could Slow the Expansion

Public school transportation is fragmented and politically sensitive. Rules differ by state, funding comes from public budgets, and procurement cycles can delay adoption. Zum operates in 18 states, with Narayan saying Kansas City, Omaha and St. Louis followed the Kansas City contract win, but profitability is not disclosed. The company's higher-cost model must keep proving that route savings outweigh the initial price in each district.

Next Moves for District Leaders, Investors and Bus Operators After Zum's 18-State Push

• For school district leaders: Request the same fleet-and-route analysis Zum presented to Oakland before renewing a traditional bus contract; that exercise reduced Oakland's fleet from 236 to 193 buses and reported $3.5 million in annual savings.
• For investors tracking Zum: Watch whether new districts follow the Kansas City-to-Omaha-to-St. Louis referral pattern and whether the 35 percent revenue growth to $333 million in 2025 converts into new multi-year contracts beyond the current 18 states.
• For incumbent bus operators and transport startups: Benchmark route-optimization and digital parent-tracking capabilities against Zum's higher-upfront-cost, lower-fleet-size pitch, because districts are showing willingness to trade initial cost for annual savings.
• For parent associations: Ask whether your district's transport contract includes a parent-facing tracking app and digital delay alerts, since these features are becoming the competitive baseline in school transportation.