Summary
New York startup Melius announced $25 million in funding after abandoning its original AI product and rebuilding around creative production. The total comprises a $20 million Series A led by CRV and a $5 million seed round led by General Catalyst. Founded by former Ramp engineers Joowon Kim, Young Kim and Arnav Ramu, Melius initially spent more than six months building an AI performance-marketing tool for managing ad spend. The team discarded that code and now offers what it describes as an agent lab for creating campaigns, images and videos from plain-language instructions. Melius says it passed $1 million in annualized revenue within two months of leaving stealth in July; that is a company-reported run rate, not a full year of revenue.
Hana’s perspective
Melius’s restart is a useful reminder that creative-AI products are still searching for the right layer of the workflow. Moving from ad-spend optimization to making the campaign assets themselves puts the company closer to the daily work of creative teams, but also into a crowded field. I am more interested in whether its “agent lab” can preserve control, editing and brand consistency than in raw generation. The early annualized revenue claim is encouraging, but two months is too short to establish durable demand.
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