Ex-Ramp engineers raise $20M for platform Melius after scrapping their first product
Ex-Ramp engineers raise $20M for platform Melius after scrapping their first product
前 Ramp 工程师在废弃首款产品后，为平台 Melius 融资 2000 万美元
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.
Melius 是一个用于生成广告活动、图像和视频的 AI 平台。该公司周二宣布已筹集总计 2500 万美元的资金，其中包括由 CRV 领投的 2000 万美元 A 轮融资，以及由 General Catalyst 领投的 500 万美元种子轮融资。尽管这家初创公司声称在 7 月结束隐身状态后的两个月内，年化收入就已超过 100 万美元，但联合创始人 Joowon Kim（右图）承认，Melius 最初的表现并不尽如人意。
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.
当这家总部位于纽约的公司一年多前首次推出时，Kim 和他的联合创始人 Young Kim（左图）以及 Arnav Ramu（中图）原本打算构建一个 AI 驱动的绩效营销工具。这三人是在企业支出和财务软件公司 Ramp 担任工程师时相识的。Joowon Kim 在接受 TechCrunch 采访时表示，在开发产品六个多月后，联合创始人们认为他们最初的想法“行不通”。团队没有选择帮助营销人员管理和优化广告支出，而是决定专注于他们眼中更大的机遇：构建能够直接生成创意素材和广告活动的工具。
“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.”
“我们废弃了整个代码库；我们把一切都烧毁了，”Kim 说道。Melius 迅速投入到全新产品的开发中。在首次发布近一年后，他们推出了一个被描述为“创意工作智能体实验室”的平台。
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.”
Melius 绝非唯一一家利用 AI 帮助广告代理商、营销人员和品牌生成创意素材和广告活动的初创公司。竞争对手包括发展迅速的 Higgsfield（8 月估值达 54 亿美元），以及 Krea 和 Flora AI 等其他小型初创公司。Kim 并不担心竞争。他承认，成立三年的 Higgsfield 年化收入已超过 7 亿美元，且“增长极其疯狂”，但 Kim 认为市场规模足够大，足以容纳多个竞争对手。“有很多参与者，这非常令人兴奋，”他告诉 TechCrunch。“这意味着有客户可以争取，这个领域存在着巨大的需求。”
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.
至于为什么前 Ramp 工程师会开发广告生成产品，自称是社交媒体影响者的 Kim 表示，他从小就对制作短视频充满热情，并曾梦想成为一名著名的 YouTuber。“我曾尽力制作视频博客，”他说。“我父亲很擅长使用 FinalCut Pro，但我却不行。”那些早期的视频博客从未真正火起来，但他对制作数字媒体的迷恋却保留了下来。现在，通过 Melius，他正在构建自己一直想要的工具：一个让任何人（包括经验丰富的创意总监）都能通过简单语言将想法变为现实的平台。