Zūm Founder and CEO Ritu Narayan

Every morning, 26 million children in the US get on a school bus. It is the largest mass transit system in America, and it has barely changed in 80 years. There is no real-time tracking, no route optimization, and no visibility for parents. Bus drivers still rely on walkie-talkies and dispatchers still use fax machines. Nearly half a million diesel buses are moving those 26 million children, producing more than eight million tons of carbon annually. It is one of the most overlooked, high-impact decarbonization opportunities in the country. The question isn't whether this system will change. It's who is going to change it. Our guest has spent the last decade building the solution. Ritu Narayan is the Founder and CEO of Zūm, a full-service school transportation platform that is modernizing and electrifying the yellow school bus. Ritu grew up in India and was raised to value education and dream big. After graduating from the Delhi Institute of Technology (now NSUT), she moved to California where she became a product leader at Oracle, Yahoo, and eBay. She left a career at eBay to take the leap into entrepreneurship and started Zūm to solve a deeply personal problem: modernizing and electrifying student transportation. In our conversation, Ritu walks me through her journey, and what it takes to reimagine a system the whole country depends on and nobody talks about. Today, Zum serves more than 5,000 schools across 18 states and completed over 60 million student rides last year. Zum has raised $430 million from investors including Sequoia, SoftBank, GIC, and TPG, and launched the nation's first all-electric, vehicle-to-grid school bus fleet at Oakland Unified School District, returning energy to the electric grid while children are at school. About Powerhouse Innovation and Powerhouse Ventures Powerhouse Ventures backs seed stage founders building the future power system across energy, infrastructure, and AI. If you are thinking about building something in this space, get in touch with our team. Powerhouse Innovation is a best in class consulting firm, powered by the strongest energy innovation network, data and team in our industry. We partner with world's leading corporations, investors, and utilities to source and evaluate disruptive startups shaping the future of energy and industry. To hear more stories of founders building our energy abundant future, hit the “subscribe” button and leave us a review.