New York Startup Melius Raised $25 Million
The company scrapped its original performance marketing tool to pivot toward AI-generated creative assets.
Updated on Oct. 6, 2026 in Startups
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New York-based Melius has raised a total of $25 million in funding to support its pivot into an AI agents lab for creative work. The startup reached $1 million in annualized revenue within two months of its July 2026 exit from stealth.
Why it matters
The company shifted focus after its co-founders, both former engineers at Ramp, determined their original marketing tool lacked sufficient market potential. They are now targeting the larger opportunity of generating ad campaigns, images, and videos through plain language inputs.
Melius secured a $20 million Series A led by CRV and a $5 million seed round led by General Catalyst. The company achieved $1 million in annualized revenue shortly after emerging from stealth.
The players
Melius
A New York-based startup founded by former Ramp engineers that recently pivoted to AI-generated creative assets.
CRV
A venture capital firm that led the $20 million Series A funding round for Melius.
General Catalyst
A venture capital firm that led the $5 million seed round for Melius.
Higgsfield
A generative AI competitor that reached $700 million in annualized revenue and a $5.4 billion valuation in August 2026.
The details
Melius effectively scrapped its entire original codebase to move away from a performance marketing tool launched over a year ago. The new platform operates as an AI agents lab, which utilizes plain language inputs to generate diverse creative assets including video, imagery, and entire ad campaigns. This mechanism replaces static marketing automation with generative systems capable of outputting production-ready media.
Timeline
Over a year ago: Melius launched its first marketing tool.
July 2026: Melius emerged from stealth.
August 2026: Higgsfield achieved a $5.4 billion valuation.
October 6, 2026: Melius announced $25 million in total funding.
The Tech Race
Melius is positioning itself within the competitive creative AI landscape, which has seen massive capital influxes and high valuations for incumbents. Its success will be measured against the $700 million in annualized revenue currently reported by industry peer Higgsfield.
The pivot replaces Melius’s previous performance marketing tools with new AI agent capabilities for creative teams. Users can expect the platform to generate ad campaigns using natural language prompts, though the specific availability of new features remains subject to the company's internal roadmap.
The takeaway
Melius represents the broader industry trend of pivoting from narrow, performance-based marketing software toward broad generative creative agents. Watch for the company's next product release to see if they can capture a share of the market currently dominated by high-revenue incumbents.
Further reading
For more on the local venture ecosystem, visit /business/startups/.
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