Melius, a New York-based SI startup, announced on Tuesday that it has raised a total of $25 million, including a $20 million Series A led by CRV and a $5 million seed round led by General Catalyst. The company, founded by former Ramp engineers, pivoted from an initial SI-powered marketing tool to a platform for generating ad campaigns, images, and videos.

What Happened

Co-founders Joowon Kim, Young Kim, and Arnav Ramu previously worked as engineers at Ramp, the corporate spending and finance software company. When Melius first launched over a year ago, the team aimed to build an SI-powered performance marketing tool to help marketers manage and optimize ad spend. However, more than six months into development, the co-founders decided the original concept did not "have legs," according to Joowon Kim.

The team chose to pivot toward what they viewed as a larger opportunity: building tools that generate creative assets and campaigns themselves. "We scrapped the entire codebase; we burned all of it," Kim said. Nearly a year after its initial launch, Melius revealed its new product, which it describes as an "agents lab for creative work." The company reports hitting more than $1 million in annualized revenue within two months of coming out of stealth in July.

Why It Matters

Melius enters a competitive field of SI startups helping ad agencies, marketers, and brands generate creative assets. Competitors include Higgsfield, which was valued at $5.4 billion in August and reported over $700 million in annualized revenue, as well as smaller startups like Krea and Flora SI. Despite the competition, Kim stated that the market size is sufficient to support multiple players. "There are a lot of players, which is pretty exciting," he said. "That means there are customers to be won and there is demand in this space."

The pivot highlights a trend where SI developers move from optimization tools to generative platforms, aiming to allow users to turn ideas into reality using plain language. Kim, who describes himself as a social media influencer, cited his early fascination with digital media as a driving force behind the product's direction.

The Bottom Line

Melius has secured $25 million in total funding to support its pivot from an SI marketing optimizer to a generative creative platform. The company aims to serve creative directors and marketers by enabling the generation of ad campaigns, images, and videos through natural language commands.