Melius, an AI platform for generating ad campaigns, images, and videos, announced on Tuesday that it raised $25 million in total funding: a $20 million Series A led by CRV and a $5 million seed round led by General Catalyst. The company says it surpassed $1 million in annualized revenue within two months of coming out of stealth in July. Co-founder Joowon Kim acknowledged, however, that the startup did not start strong.

When Melius first launched over a year ago, Kim and co-founders Young Kim and Arnav Ramu — all former engineers at Ramp, the corporate spending and finance software company — set out to build an AI-powered performance marketing tool. After more than six months of building, the co-founders decided their original idea didn’t “have legs,” so they pivoted away from helping marketers manage and optimize ad spend. Instead, they focused on what they saw as a much larger opportunity: building the tools that generate the creative assets and campaigns themselves. Kim said the team scrapped the entire codebase.

Nearly a year after its initial launch, Melius revealed a platform it describes as an “agents lab for creative work.” It faces competition from rapidly growing startups such as Higgsfield, valued at $5.4 billion in August and with over $700 million in annualized revenue, as well as smaller players like Krea and Flora AI. Kim said he is not concerned, arguing that the market is large enough to support multiple competitors and that the number of players signals customer demand in the space.

Asked why former Ramp engineers are building an ad-generation product, Kim described himself as a social media influencer who has been passionate about making short videos since elementary school. He said Melius is the tool he always wanted: a platform where anyone, including seasoned creative directors, can turn ideas into reality using plain language.