Ex-Ramp engineers raise $25m for AI ad platform Melius

Three former Ramp engineers have raised $25 million for Melius, an AI startup building tools that allow marketers and brands to generate advertising campaigns, images and videos using natural language.

The New York-based company announced on Tuesday that it raised $20 million in a Series A round led by CRV, alongside a $5 million seed round led by General Catalyst.

Melius, founded by Joowon Kim, Young Kim and Arnav Ramu, said it has surpassed $1 million in annualised revenue just two months after emerging from stealth in July.

But the company’s current product emerged from a major rethink of its original business idea.

The founders initially set out to build an AI-powered performance marketing platform that would help marketers manage and optimise advertising spending.

After more than six months of development, however, they concluded that the product did not have enough potential.

“We scrapped the entire codebase; we burned all of it,” Joowon Kim told TechCrunch.

The team then shifted its focus to AI tools that could create advertising assets and campaigns rather than manage ad spending.

Nearly a year after its initial launch, Melius unveiled what it calls an “agents lab for creative work”, designed to help users turn ideas into complete creative campaigns.

Kim said the platform is aimed at everyone from professional creative directors to people with little or no experience in producing digital media.

Melius is entering an increasingly crowded AI advertising market, competing with companies such as Higgsfield, Krea and Flora AI.

Higgsfield, in particular, has grown rapidly and was valued at $5.4 billion in August, according to TechCrunch. The company has also reportedly surpassed $700 million in annualised revenue.

Kim said he was not deterred by the competition, arguing that the size of the advertising and creative market leaves room for multiple players.

“There are a lot of players, which is pretty exciting,” he said. “That means there are customers to be won and there is demand in this space.”

The founders’ backgrounds at Ramp helped shape the company, but Kim said his own interest in digital content creation predates his technology career.

He described himself as a social media influencer and said he had been interested in producing short videos since elementary school, even aspiring to become a YouTuber.

“I tried my best to make vlogs,” Kim said. “My dad was great at using FinalCut Pro, but I wasn’t.”

Melius is now betting that advances in generative AI can make professional-quality advertising production accessible through simple, natural-language instructions.