Ex-Ramp Engineers Raise $25M for Melius After Scrapping Their First Product
Melius, a startup building an AI platform for generating ad campaigns, images and videos, has raised $25 million in total. Its founders first abandoned their original product and rebuilt from scratch.
Melius, a New York-based startup developing an AI platform for creating ad campaigns, images and videos, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $25 million in total funding. The sum consists of a $20 million Series A round led by CRV and a $5 million seed round led by General Catalyst.
The company says it reached more than $1 million in annualized revenue within two months of emerging from stealth in July.
From a marketing tool to a creative platform
Melius was founded by three former engineers of corporate spending and finance software company Ramp: Joowon Kim, Young Kim and Arnav Ramu. More than a year ago they began building an AI-powered performance marketing tool meant to help marketers manage and optimize ad spend.
After spending over six months on the product, the founders concluded that the idea lacked staying power. Joowon Kim told TechCrunch the team decided to pursue what it saw as a bigger opportunity: building tools that generate creative assets and campaigns themselves. "We scrapped the entire codebase; we burned all of it," he said.
About a year after its initial launch, the company unveiled a new platform that it describes as an "agents lab for creative work."
Competition
Melius is not the only startup helping ad agencies, marketers and brands produce creative material with AI. Competitors include fast-growing Higgsfield, valued at $5.4 billion in August, along with smaller startups such as Krea and Flora AI. Higgsfield is three years old and has surpassed $700 million in annualized revenue.
Kim says he is not worried about the competition. He acknowledged that Higgsfield is "growing like mad," but argued the market is large enough to support several players.
A personal motivation
Kim describes himself as a social media influencer and says he has loved making short videos since elementary school, once dreaming of becoming a famous YouTuber. His early vlogs never took off. With Melius, he aims to build a tool that lets anyone, including seasoned creative directors, turn ideas into reality using plain language.
