Ex-Ramp Engineers Secure $20M for AI Creative Platform After Major Pivot

On Tuesday, Melius, an AI platform designed to generate ad campaigns, images, and videos, revealed it has secured $25 million in total funding. The round comprises a $20 million Series A led by CRV and a $5 million seed round led by General Catalyst.

Although the startup reports generating over $1 million in annualized revenue just two months after emerging from stealth in July, co-founder Joowon Kim admits the company did not initially achieve immediate success.

Founded over a year ago in New York by Joowon Kim, Young Kim, and Arnav Ramu, the company originally aimed to develop an AI-powered performance marketing tool. The trio had previously worked together as engineers at Ramp, a corporate spending and finance software company.

After more than six months of development, the founders concluded that their initial concept "didn't have legs," Joowon Kim told TechCrunch.

Shifting focus from helping marketers manage ad spend, the team pursued what they identified as a significantly larger opportunity: creating the tools that actually generate creative assets and campaigns.

"We scrapped the entire codebase; we burned all of it," Kim stated. Consequently, Melius rapidly pivoted to develop a completely new product. Nearly a year after its first launch, the company unveiled a platform it terms an "agents lab for creative work."

Melius operates in a competitive landscape of startups assisting agencies, marketers, and brands in generating creative assets through AI. Competitors include the rapidly growing Higgsfield, which was valued at $5.4 billion in August, alongside smaller ventures like Krea and Flora AI.

Kim remains unfazed by the competition.

He acknowledged that Higgsfield, a three-year-old company with over $700 million in annualized revenue, "is growing like mad." However, Kim believes the market size is vast 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."

Regarding the decision for former Ramp engineers to build an ad generation product, Kim, who describes himself as a social media influencer, noted his long-standing passion for creating short videos dating back to elementary school and his past dream of becoming a famous YouTuber.

"I tried my best to make vlogs," he said. "My dad was great at using FinalCut Pro, but I wasn't."

Those early vlogs did not achieve viral success, but his fascination with digital media persisted.

Now, with Melius, he is constructing the tool he always envisioned: a platform that allows anyone (including experienced creative directors) to transform their ideas into reality using plain language.