On any given morning in Lagos, the roads tell a familiar story: horns blaring, buses crammed beyond limit, a thousand people late before 8 a.m. But quietly disrupting the chaos is a woman who, rather than accept this daily disorder, decided to rewrite the narrative.
Damilola Olokesusi didn’t set out to become a tech founder. Trained as a chemical engineer, she knew how to solve problems methodically but nothing in her education quite prepared her for the mess of Lagos transportation. It was personal for her. Years ago, one of her sisters boarded what she thought was a public bus and ended up being abducted and robbed. That single moment, terrifying and formative, lodged itself in Damilola’s mind as more than just a cautionary tale. It became a turning point.
The idea of Shuttlers started as a question: what if movement could be intentional, safe, shared, and time-efficient? In a city infamous for its traffic and unpredictability, that question felt almost radical. She didn’t have deep funding. She didn’t have a tech background. What she did have was conviction and clarity.
In 2015, she took a step that would change her trajectory. Along with two co-founders, she launched a pilot that would evolve into Shuttlers, a tech-enabled bus-sharing platform tailored to working professionals. It wasn’t just another ride-hailing idea. Shuttlers introduced something rare in Nigerian transportation: predictability.
She began small, testing a model where commuters could pre-book seats on private buses following fixed, efficient routes. The target wasn’t just individuals but companies too. By partnering with organizations, Shuttlers became a reliable commuting solution for staff, helping businesses solve punctuality and employee wellness challenges. It was a quiet revolution, structured not around hype, but necessity.
For years, Shuttlers grew without noise. While others chased headlines and funding rounds, Damilola focused on fundamentals: operational efficiency, lean spending, and sustainable expansion. By the time most people noticed, Shuttlers was already operating across dozens of routes in Lagos and Abuja, completing millions of trips and building one of the most disciplined startups in the ecosystem.
Her approach is unconventional in a scene often driven by speed and spectacle. She scaled deliberately, refusing to overspend or overpromise. In 2021, the company raised its first $1.6 million seed round, followed by a $4 million Series A two years later. But even then, the ethos remained the same: solve a real problem, serve real people, and don’t waste resources.
Shuttlers is now one of the few mobility companies in Nigeria with traction, structure, and scale.
In an industry where speed often wins headlines, Damilola Olokesusi has built her legacy on something slower and stronger: trust, structure, and a refusal to accept the way things have always been.
