Melius, an AI platform that generates advertising campaigns, images, and videos, has raised $25 million in total funding, the company announced Tuesday, after its founders scrapped their entire first product and rebuilt from scratch.
The startup emerged from stealth in July and claims to have surpassed $1 million in annualized revenue within two months of launch. The funding round was led by an undisclosed investor group, with participation from several angel investors from the enterprise software sector.
Co-founder Kim confirmed the company's radical pivot, stating: "We scrapped the entire codebase; we burned all of it." The decision to abandon their initial product came after the founding team — both former engineers at corporate card startup Ramp — determined their first approach would not scale to meet advertiser demand for automated content generation.
The advertising technology sector has seen increased competition as generative AI tools proliferate. Melius differentiates itself by focusing specifically on end-to-end campaign creation rather than single-asset generation, allowing marketers to produce complete ad sets from a single prompt.
Ramp, where the founders previously worked, reached a $7.65 billion valuation in 2023 and has spun out several successful startup founders in recent years. The fintech company's engineering culture has become a training ground for founders building AI-native enterprise tools.
Melius joins a crowded field of AI advertising startups that have attracted venture capital over the past 18 months. Competitors include Jasper, which raised $125 million in 2022, and Copy.ai, though both focus primarily on text generation rather than full video and image campaign production.
The company plans to use the funding to expand its engineering team and accelerate product development. Melius currently employs fewer than 20 people, according to its website, and operates primarily out of San Francisco.
Investors have shown renewed appetite for AI applications that demonstrate rapid revenue growth, even at early stages. Melius's $1 million annualized revenue milestone within two months of launch places it among the faster-growing enterprise AI startups to emerge from stealth this year.
The founders have not disclosed specific customers or the exact date of their funding close. Melius declined to comment on its valuation or the identity of its lead investor.
