Kristina Fahl spent the first portion of her career working in direct response marketing and insurance. She ultimately rose to the position of Vice President for Bank of America in Wilmington, Delaware, where she worked until 2016 while raising her daughter alongside her husband. But in that position, Fahl’s 50-minute commute made it difficult for her to get her daughter to school on time.
Speaking with other parents, Fahl realized she wasn’t the only one dealing with this issue, and it didn’t help that school transportation services were dwindling.
“I got a call one day from a gentleman crying,” she said. “And he says, ‘If I can’t figure this out, I’m going to lose my job.’ It causes a lot of stress.”
So Fahl did something she’d never expected to: The former vice president decided to leave her career and start a transportation company, calling it Shuttlebee.
A few years in, the startup was doing well with hiring drivers and operating a lucrative shuttling program, according to Fahl. But auto insurance remained a barrier.
“We paid about $10,000 a year for commercial auto insurance [for a minivan], and the math just didn’t math,” she said.
In 2021, Fahl ceased Shuttlebee’s operations, moved with her family to North Carolina and took on new roles—including acting as the head of operations for Bus.com, which she did until February of 2023. This gave her opportunities to interview operators for small transportation companies, several of whom were dealing with the same disadvantages she’d encountered.
New business models
Fahl’s experiences with small transportation companies inspired a new approach for Shuttlebee. And in 2024, she met Somil Jain, an insurance expert and Chief Actuary at Steadily who helped build the first auto insurance program to utilize telematics from the ground up.
Alongside a team of advisors with backgrounds in education, sales and insurance, Fahl and Jain reincorporated Shuttlebee in February as an insurtech platform. The startup’s new approach improves student transportation with safety tools, auto insurance for small transportation providers, and contracts for those providers to serve K-12 students.
Insurance and benefits for drivers
Shuttlebee incorporates telematics, which is effectively the combination of vehicle performance data and telecommunications, and which is considered a newer monitoring approach in the insurance business. It actively tracks a driver’s performance by detecting road behavior and vehicle location.
Information gathered from telematics and research is analyzed (by real people), enabling Shuttlebee to reward drivers or take action against erratic behavior or malfunctions as needed. She cited a “predict and prevent” aspect of the service as the “most exciting piece of the puzzle,” stating that these processes build business continuity that most insurance companies do not.
The co-founder also emphasized that Shuttlebee has a training program helping drivers to actually service customers.
“We know these drivers, we’ve met them, we’ve interviewed them in many cases. We provide them with training not just on how to manage transportation, but how to run a small business.”
Shuttlebee’s focal points
As of this writing, the Shuttlebee team is targeting charter school administrators and parents looking for easy, accessible transport services for their children. Benefits for parents include a dispatch called the “Parent Communication Tool,” which connects them to their kids’ drivers to monitor location and communicate any concerns.
Shuttlebee is also setting up a centralized dispatch and communication portal. Administrators will have access to the marketplace to touch base with families and transportation providers.
Shuttles for special needs students are also in the works, and the company has been actively engaged with special education teachers to figure out the best ways to develop this service.
“[We’re] launching the curriculum to make sure that the operator is skilled,” Fahl said. “Whether it’s physical special needs… behavioral needs [like] additional training on de-escalation. So we are looking to launch our first pilot for special needs students in the fall of next year.”
Shuttlebee will soon launch small shuttles or minivans for up to 10 passengers, not only for school transportation but also for their piloted summer camp shuttles. Fahl and Jean are currently in discussions with camps and families that may be interested in this service.
Model and revenue
Shuttlebee runs on two business models. The first is a marketplace, which includes an operator network connecting drivers and passengers. The second, to be launched next spring, is a commercial auto insurance service offering lower premiums.
The founders ultimately expect revenue to split between these two service branches as they look to tap into an estimated $180 billion U.S. student transportation market. Currently, there are no set payment plans for parents attached to the service.
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Startup: Shuttlebee
Co-Founders: Kristina Fahl (CEO), Somil Jain
Founded: 2025 (in current form)
Team size: 3 (+6 advisors/board)
Location: Asheville
Website: getshuttlebee.com
Funding: Bootstrapped; pending pre-seed
This past October, the startup was named one of the 16 latest NC IDEA MICRO grant recipients. It also graduated from the RevTech Labs Accelerator program in Charlotte, pitching alongside other graduates at the Venture135 conference in November.
“That has moved the needle for us quite a bit,” Fahl said in reference to NC IDEA.
Moving forward, she believes Shuttlebee will stay lean, serving essentially as a workforce development program. But they will grow as they access more resources in North Carolina.
“I hope that our program bleeds into some of these larger programs,” she said, “so we can focus on what we do best: insurance and prevention work.”
More broadly, the team is eager for families to use Shuttlebee to overcome the existing barrier in school transportation.
Those interested can actively explore services at Shuttlebee’s website.
