Gabe Huntsman
Afuse – MICRO Fall 2025
Published April 15, 2026
As part of our ‘Meet Our Founders’ series today, we introduce Gabe Huntsman, Founder and CEO of Afuse based in Raleigh, NC. Afuse is a mobile app helping students find roommates, friends, and housing connections.
Q: What problem are you trying to solve and what influenced you to start your company?
A: During my transition from high school to NC State, I remember the feelings of anxiety about not knowing anybody and who I’d be living with. I looked for solutions to this problem and found a makeshift one on social media where I could upload some photos and a short bio about myself to find some of these initial connections. Inspired by these prototypes, I created some of my own and quickly found ways to grow them, amassing 14,000 followers and posting 6,000 students across five accounts in the first cycle. While this worked out great, I still saw that Instagram had many issues in the solution, including long wait times, accounts tricking students, and overall, not being a platform designed for this solution. This motivated me to create Afuse, a mobile app designed as a purpose-made solution with enhanced profiles, insightful questions, and scalability, now helping 8,000 students throughout the Southeast.
Q: What does the road ahead look like for your company?
A: The road ahead includes working with enterprise partners like universities to distribute Afuse to more students. Often, universities face a disconnect between the students attending and the collegiate decisions that must be made regarding roommate selection, student affairs, and enrollment. By working with universities, we believe we can offer the best of both worlds by bridging the gap between universities and students. When students have these vital connections from day one, they’re less stressed, feel more confident in their decision, and are more likely to be retained.
Q: When did you know you wanted to take an entrepreneurial path?
A: I didn’t know that I wanted to go the entrepreneurial path until I found myself doing it. I was admitted to NC State as a spring student, meaning the fall semester, I was going to be left behind in my high school hometown while all my friends were off to college for their first semester. I initially saw this as a major setback to my development and had a huge sense of FOMO. I was doing things like dishwashing and community college to at least be doing something, but I started thinking about what inspired me and ways to get ahead. I started to realize that this “delay” was actually an opportunity to reflect and find ways to make a difference. I started thinking about problems to solve, and best reflected on my own. Hence, enabling me to take the initiative to create my first social media account to connect students and eventually build Afuse. If I had never had this odd of an experience, I likely would not have had the jumpstart to my entrepreneurial career that I do today.
While visiting Boone (where Gabe is originally from), Gabe recommends:
- I’m from Boone, I’d definitely tell them to get Comeback Shack and visit the Blue Ridge Parkway—great food and beautiful mountains and scenery.
Support Afuse and Gabe by:
- We are looking for more ways to connect with university administrators in housing and admissions, as well as those in the software and fundraising spaces.
