Ex-Ramp Engineers' Melius Raises $25M for AI Ad-Creative Agents

Three former Ramp engineers scrapped their first product after about six months of work, then raised $25 million to try something else. 'We scrapped the entire codebase; we burned all of it,' co-founder Joowon Kim told TechCrunch. The first idea, an AI tool to help marketers manage ad spend, did not 'have legs.'

What replaced it is Melius, which Kim describes as an 'agents lab for creative work' that turns plain-language prompts into ad campaigns, images, and videos. CRV led the $20 million Series A; General Catalyst led a $5 million seed. Co-founders Young Kim and Arnav Ramu round out the team.

Melius says it crossed $1 million in annualized revenue within two months of coming out of stealth in July 2026. The reporting does not name a single customer. Kim concedes the field is thick: Higgsfield 'is growing like mad,' and 'there are a lot of players, which is pretty exciting. That means there are customers to be won and there is demand in this space.'

The pitch is personal. 'I tried my best to make vlogs,' Kim says. 'My dad was great at using FinalCut Pro, but I wasn't,' he adds, framing Melius as 'a platform where anyone, including seasoned creative directors, can turn their ideas into reality using plain language.' It lands in a dense run of AI funding we have tracked this quarter.