Ramp Veterans Launch Melius, AI Creative Platform, After Scrapping First Idea

Three engineers who previously worked together at Ramp have launched Melius, an artificial intelligence platform designed to help marketers and creative teams produce ad campaigns, images, and videos. The New York-based startup announced a $25 million funding round on Tuesday, comprising a $20 million Series A led by CRV alongside a $5 million seed investment from General Catalyst.

The founders—Joowon Kim, Young Kim, and Arnav Ramu—said their service has already surpassed $1 million in annualized revenue within two months of emerging from stealth mode in July, though the path to this product wasn't straightforward.

The Pivot#

The team's original vision focused on building an AI tool to help performance marketers manage and optimize advertising spending. After investing more than six months in development, the co-founders realized their initial direction lacked commercial potential. "We scrapped the entire codebase; we burned all of it," Joowon Kim said of the decision to abandon the project entirely.

Rather than iterate on the existing concept, the team chose to pursue what they believed was a more expansive market opportunity: creating the underlying technology that generates creative content itself. The company rebuilt from scratch and relaunched nearly a year later with a new platform it positions as an "agents lab for creative work."

A Crowded but Expanding Market#

Melius enters a competitive landscape where multiple startups are racing to automate creative production. Higgsfield, a three-year-old competitor, has achieved rapid growth, reaching $700 million in annualized revenue and a $5.4 billion valuation as of August. Other players in the space include Krea and Flora AI.

Kim remains undeterred, noting that Higgsfield is "growing like mad" but arguing that the total addressable market is sufficiently large to support several viable 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."

From Aspiring YouTuber to AI Platform Builder#

The founder's path to building creative software tools has personal roots. Kim describes himself as a social media enthusiast who became fascinated with video production as a child, even harboring ambitions to become a successful content creator. His early attempts at vlogging, however, never gained traction—partly due to his limited proficiency with video editing software compared to his father's expertise with FinalCut Pro.