Former Ramp engineers Joowon Kim, Young Kim and Arnav Ramu announced on Tuesday that their AI startup Melius has raised $25 million in total funding, comprising a $20 million Series A led by CRV and a $5 million seed round led by General Catalyst. The New York-based company reported surpassing $1 million in annualized revenue within two months of emerging from stealth in July. Co-founder Joowon Kim stated the initial product concept failed to gain traction, prompting the team to abandon their first codebase and pivot toward an AI platform focused on generating advertising creative assets and campaigns. Melius now describes its offering as an "agents lab for creative work," targeting marketers, agencies and brands seeking automated generation of ad content, images and videos. The startup enters a competitive landscape that includes firms such as Higgsfield, valued at $5.4 billion in August, as well as Krea and Flora AI. Kim characterized the market as expansive enough to accommodate multiple players, noting strong demand for creative automation tools. The founders' background at Ramp, a corporate finance software company, and Kim's personal history of pursuing digital media creation inform the company's current focus on democratizing campaign production through natural language interfaces.