三位前 Ramp 工程师烧掉第一个产品换来 2500 万美元：Melius 出隐身后两个月做到年化超百万美元，直面估值 54 亿的 Higgsfield
Ex-Ramp engineers raise $20M for platform Melius after scrapping their first product
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导读
面向生成广告活动、图像与视频的 AI 平台 Melius 周二宣布已募得总额 2500 万美元，包括 CRV 领投的 2000 万美元 A 轮与 General Catalyst 领投的 500 万美元种子轮。虽然公司称 7 月结束隐身、两个月内年化收入就超过 100 万美元，联合创始人 Joowon Kim 承认它起初并未一击命中。这家纽约公司在一年多前创立时，Kim 与两位联合创始人 Young Kim、Arnav Ramu（三人在企业支出与财务软件公司 Ramp 做工程师时相识）原本要做的是一款 AI 驱动的效果营销工具。产品做了六个多月后，三人判断最初那个想法「站不住」。于是他们从帮营销人管理与优化广告支出，转向他们看到一个更大的机会：去做生成创意资产与广告活动本身的那些工具——「我们把整个代码库烧掉了，全部烧掉」。近一年后的新形态被公司描述为「面向创意工作的智能体实验室」。赛道竞争也被交代清楚：帮广告公司、营销人与品牌用 AI 生成创意资产与活动的创业公司远不止它一家，对手包括 8 月估值 54 亿美元、高速增长的 Higgsfield，以及更小的 Krea 与 Flora AI。Kim 并不担心竞争，他承认三年历史、年化超 7 亿美元的 Higgsfield「增长得疯狂」，但认为市场大到足以容纳多个竞争者：「玩家很多，这很令人兴奋，意味着有客户可争取、这个领域有需求。」至于前 Ramp 工程师为何做广告生成，Kim 自称是社媒影响者，从小学起就热衷做短视频、曾梦想成为知名 YouTuber——「我尽力拍 vlog，我爸 FinalCut Pro 用得很好，我不行。」那些 vlog 没火，但对制作数字媒体的迷恋留了下来；如今他在造自己一直想要的工具：让任何人、包括资深创意总监，都能用平实语言把想法变成现实。
推荐理由
这条的价值在一个罕见而具体的决策——上线六个多月后整片代码库烧掉重做，并换来了可核查的收入与融资口径；对手估值也给了完整的市场坐标。
主体与标签
Melius#融资/并购#视频生成#图像生成
正文
Melius , an AI platform for generating ad campaigns, images, and videos, announced on Tuesday that it raised a total of $25 million in funding, including a $20 million Series A led by CRV and a $5 million seed round led by General Catalyst.
While the startup claims to have hit more than $1 million in annualized revenue within two months of coming out of stealth in July, co-founder Joowon Kim (pictured on right) admits that Melius didn’t hit it out of the park initially.
When the New York-based company first launched over a year ago, Kim and his co-founders, Young Kim (pictured on left) and Arnav Ramu (pictured center) set out to build an AI-powered performance marketing tool. The three knew each other from working as engineers at Ramp, the corporate spending and finance software company.
More than six months after building the product, the co-founders decided their original idea didn’t “have legs,” Joowon Kim told TechCrunch.
Instead of helping marketers manage and optimize ad spend, the team chose to focus on what it saw as a much larger opportunity: building the tools that generate the creative assets and campaigns themselves.
“We scrapped the entire codebase; we burned all of it,” Kim said. Melius quickly went to work on an entirely new product. Nearly a year after its initial launch, it revealed a platform that it describes as an “agents lab for creative work.”
Melius is far from the only startup helping ad agencies, marketers, and brands generate creative assets and campaigns with AI. Competitors include rapidly growing Higgsfield, which was valued at $5.4 billion in August, as well as other small startups, including Krea and Flora AI.
Kim isn’t concerned about the competition.
He acknowledged that Higgsfield, a three-year-old company that has hit over $700 million in annualized revenue, “is growing like mad,” but according to Kim, the size of the market is so large that it can support multiple competitors.
“There are a lot of players, which is pretty exciting,” he told TechCrunch. “That means there are customers to be won and there is demand in this space.”
As for why former Ramp engineers are building an ad-generation product, Kim, who describes himself as a social media influencer, says he has been passionate about making short videos since elementary school and once dreamed of becoming a famous YouTuber.
“I tried my best to make vlogs,” he said. “My dad was great at using FinalCut Pro, but I wasn’t.”
Those early vlogs never quite took off, but his fascination with making digital media remained.
Now, with Melius, he’s building the tool he always wanted: a platform where anyone, including seasoned creative directors, can turn their ideas into reality using plain language.
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Marina Temkin is a venture capital and startups reporter at TechCrunch. Prior to joining TechCrunch, she wrote about VC for PitchBook and Venture Capital Journal. Earlier in her career, Marina was a financial analyst and earned a CFA charterholder designation.
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