CEO Tanner McCraney co-founded Rumie as a mobile app focused on helping college students buy, sell, and rent secondhand items on campus. Since its launch, the platform has attracted hundreds of thousands of student users across nearly every college and university in the country. But after a pivot to focus on universities as their customers, Rumie’s journey is now even more promising: a white-labeled SaaS platform that enables colleges to offer their students a secure, custom marketplace directly within each school’s digital infrastructure.
Rumie initially tried to generate revenue through transaction fees and facilitating shipping between students on different campuses. McCraney said the team quickly learned that college students didn’t want to deal with the post office or shipping services to sell their stuff—they wanted to swap things locally, often via cash apps, not online transactions that could help fund the platform. So, they shifted focus from a student-facing product to developing an enterprise-ready tool universities could adopt and license. “We’re building what the university wants,” McCraney said, “while keeping the features students love.”
After plumbing the challenges of campus bureaucracy, the Rumie team developed a streamlined sales process that starts with student government endorsements and moves through departments like student affairs and procurement. The software itself integrates seamlessly into university websites—no app download required—and a scalable structure simplifies onboarding. “It’s literally just an extension of their university website,” McCraney said.
The pivot has been self-funded through previous seed funding and current revenue. Instead of building a one-size-fits-all product, Rumie will tailor the new solution with flexible licensing, customized branding, and optional features like chat or calendar integrations. “We can add or take away features based on needs,” McCraney said, making the product accessible to schools of all sizes.
Innovate Mississippi has been proud to support Rumie throughout this evolution. A $100,000 Mississippi Seed Fund award in 2023 was part of the impetus that helped them close a $450,000 seed round in 2024.
“Innovate Mississippi is always there to help us,” McCraney said, highlighting the ongoing support from our team and the broader startup community in Mississippi. That ecosystem has given Rumie the room to experiment, learn, and ultimately build a scalable business with strong potential for national growth.
With over a dozen universities ready to onboard as they bring the new SaaS version online, Rumie is prepping for rapid adoption. “We’re very excited for this launch, so we can quickly start onboarding,” McCraney said. “And then it’s just a ‘stacking universities’ game. We get a first group of universities in there, show them how impactful this can be on campus and how much the students will be using it.”
