Melius Scrapped Its First Product Before Raising $20M. What Does the Second One Actually Do?

Melius, a New York startup, announced a $20M Series A led by CRV on 6 October 2026, taking its total funding to $25M after a $5M seed led by General Catalyst, TechCrunch reports. Its founders threw away an AI ad-spend tool and rebuilt the company as a canvas where an AI agent produces images, video and audio. The company says it passed $1M in annualized revenue within two months of leaving stealth in July, a figure no outside party has verified.

What does Melius actually do?

Melius is a node-based creative canvas for AI images, video and audio. Every prompt, image, clip and audio file is a node on an infinite canvas, and lines between nodes pass one output into the next step, according to the Melius homepage.

The agent is called Mel. It wires the nodes together, picks a model for each step and leaves every prompt editable. A typical pipeline, as the company describes it, runs from a reference image to an image, then to a video, a voiceover and a final cut. Users can swap the model on a single node, branch to compare variations and save a graph as a template.

The company calls this an "agents lab for creative work." TechCrunch reports that co-founder Joowon Kim wants anyone, including experienced creative directors, to turn ideas into finished work using plain language.

Melius does not train its own generative models. Its terms say it routes inputs to third-party models, and its site names image models such as Nano Banana, GPT Image, Flux, Seedream and Ideogram, video models such as Seedance, Veo and Kling, and ElevenLabs for audio.

What is live and what is still "Soon"?

Five features are marked live and two are marked "Soon" in the company's 6 October announcement. That matters because the most editing-heavy piece is not shipped yet.

The site also links to a desktop app, and the Professional and Team plans include Slack agent access. A built-in multi-track video editor handles trimming and assembly today, per the homepage.

Why did Melius scrap its first product?

The founders concluded after more than six months that their first idea, an AI performance marketing tool for managing and optimizing ad spend, did not "have legs," TechCrunch reports. They also saw a bigger opportunity in building the tools that make the ads and campaigns in the first place.

Kim told TechCrunch: "We scrapped the entire codebase; we burned all of it." The new product followed quickly.

The timeline is murky. TechCrunch says the first product launched over a year ago and that the new platform was revealed nearly a year later. Melius's own announcement says Kim started "this version of Melius" 219 days before the post, which points to about March 2026. Other coverage dates the exit from stealth to July 2026. The two can fit together if the first product was a separate earlier effort, but no source spells that out.

Who built Melius, and are they really ex-Ramp?

Melius was founded by Joowon Kim (CEO), Young Kim and Arnav Ramu, per Dealroom and the company's announcement. TechCrunch says the three knew each other as engineers at Ramp, the corporate spend-management company.

Dealroom, crediting Business Insider, adds detail: Joowon Kim was a senior engineer at Ramp, and Young Kim was director of engineering there and co-founded Venue, which Ramp acquired in 2023. The same report says Arnav Ramu previously worked in software investing at Hg and banking at Guggenheim. So "ex-Ramp engineers" fits at least two founders on that account, and the third's background differs from the headline framing.

The company says it has 16 people and an office in Chelsea, New York. Its announcement lists General Catalyst, CRV, Genius Ventures, Vine Ventures and Anti Fund as investors. Dealroom says the new money is earmarked for hiring, a sales team and expanding the agents lab.

How much does Melius cost?

Melius has a free tier with a limited trial of credits, and paid plans priced by monthly credits. The company says generating anything uses credits, and the only ways to get more are a paid plan or a one-time top-up. Last checked: 13 October 2026.

The pricing page shows two sets of numbers that do not match. The plan cards show two prices each (the page does not label which is annual and which is monthly). A comparison table lower on the same page shows different figures.

Team plans need at least 2 seats and go up to 10 on self-serve, and the page says self-serve Team billing is in beta. Per the terms (effective 28 August 2026), paid plans auto-renew, fees are non-refundable except where law requires, and credits have no cash value.

Cost per finished asset is the real number to watch. The company's own estimate puts a Creator video at roughly 1,400 credits, so 14 videos is the whole month.

What are the problems with Melius?

The biggest gap is evidence. Everything about quality, speed and reliability in the coverage cited here comes from the company.

Some other limits are visible from the company's own pages:

• Third-party dependence. Melius routes to other companies' models, so output quality, availability and cost depend on those providers. The terms say Melius gives no IP warranty on outputs, though users own their outputs and may use them commercially on any plan.
• Unfinished editing. The agent-driven timeline editor is listed as "Soon."
• Credits, not unlimited use. Agent usage is described as unlimited on paid plans, but generations draw down a fixed credit pool, and a handful of videos can consume a Creator month.
• Terms restrictions. The terms bar benchmarking, reselling access in ways that compete with the service, and training competing models.
• Data. Melius says it does not use inputs or outputs to train AI models, but it does use aggregated, de-identified data to improve the service, and the third-party model providers have their own data practices.

How does Melius compare with Higgsfield, Krea and Flora?

TechCrunch names Higgsfield, Krea and Flora AI as competitors. Only Higgsfield has public numbers in the coverage, and they dwarf Melius's.

Figures for Higgsfield come from a TechCrunch report based on the company's release. Kim told TechCrunch the market is big enough for several players.

Is Melius worth trying?

Try it if you make ad or product creative regularly and already juggle several generation tools. A single canvas where an agent chooses the model is a real convenience, and the free tier lets you see whether the workflow fits before paying.

Wait if you need a finished editing timeline, firm output-quality evidence or predictable per-asset costs. Agencies should read the terms on IP and data before putting client work through it. Solo hobbyists will find the credit pool runs out fast on video.

What's still unclear?

• Revenue and usage. The $1M annualized revenue and "thousands of teams" claims come from the company. Both TechCrunch and Dealroom repeat them without independent confirmation.
• Customers. The homepage shows logos including Gopuff, ClassPass, Life360 and Whop under "Trusted by creatives from," but there are no testimonials or case studies, and a logo does not show contract size or depth of use.
• Which pricing is right. The cards and the comparison table disagree, and the page does not say which price is annual.
• The timeline. Sources differ on when the first product launched and when the second began.
• Founder backgrounds. Reports differ on whether all three founders worked at Ramp.
• The strongest counter-argument. Because Melius builds on other companies' models and competes with a rival valued at $5.4B, its edge has to come from workflow and agents, not from the output itself. That edge has not been tested in public.