Ex-Ramp engineers raise $20M for platform Melius after scrapping their first product

Melius, an AI platform that generates ad campaigns, images, and videos, announced Tuesday it raised $25 million in total funding: a $20 million Series A led by CRV and a $5 million seed round led by General Catalyst.

The New York-based company was founded over a year ago by Joowon Kim, Young Kim, and Arnav Ramu, who met while working as engineers at Ramp, the corporate spending and finance software company.

Melius originally set out to build an AI-powered performance marketing tool. More than six months after building that product, the co-founders decided the idea didn't "have legs," Joowon Kim told TechCrunch. The team shifted from helping marketers manage and optimize ad spend to building tools that generate creative assets and campaigns themselves.

"We scrapped the entire codebase; we burned all of it," Kim said. Melius built an entirely new product and, nearly a year after its initial launch, revealed a platform it describes as an "agents lab for creative work." The startup claims it surpassed $1 million in annualized revenue within two months of coming out of stealth in July.

Melius competes with other startups helping agencies, marketers, and brands generate creative assets and campaigns with AI, including Higgsfield, Krea, and Flora AI. Kim said Higgsfield, a three-year-old company valued at $5.4 billion in August with over $700 million in annualized revenue, "is growing like mad," but he said the market is large enough to support multiple competitors. "There are a lot of players, which is pretty exciting," he told TechCrunch. "That means there are customers to be won and there is demand in this space."

Kim, who describes himself as a social media influencer, said he has been passionate about making short videos since elementary school and once dreamed of becoming a YouTuber. He said Melius is the tool he always wanted: a platform where anyone, including seasoned creative directors, can turn ideas into reality using plain language.