The archive · Commerce & Marketplaces · Product decision · 2024–2026
Melian's AI shopping search bets one app can unify Argentina's fragmented fashion market
Melian, founded in 2024 by three teenage Argentines, unifies fashion e-commerce with AI search — and raised a $2M seed from Hi Ventures and Guillermo Rauch.
Melian
What the business is
An AI-powered shopping-discovery app that indexes products from thousands of independent fashion stores into a single searchable catalog, with natural-language search, visual recognition and an AI chatbot that answers and sells on WhatsApp.
Starting capital：$2M seed (June 2025) led by Hi Ventures, with Guillermo Rauch (Vercel CEO) participating; plus more than $615K in earlier rounds.
How it started
Melian was founded in late 2024 in Argentina by Santiago Ruberto (19), Mateo Zarate (20) and Valentín Ratti (24). The founders bet that online shopping is broken: inventory sits scattered across thousands of independent stores, so discovery and comparison are manual. Melian aggregates that supply into one catalog — more than four million products from over 7,500 stores — with natural-language search, visual recognition and personalized recommendations, plus a 'melian-bot' that answers customer questions and manages leads on WhatsApp.
What happened
After relaunching its current version in December 2024, Melian processed more than one million searches and says thousands of users start purchases each month; the app became the third most downloaded shopping app in Argentina. In June 2025, Mexican VC Hi Ventures led a $2M seed round, with Guillermo Rauch, CEO of Vercel, also investing; Melian had previously raised more than $615K from Newtopia VC and Broom Ventures. The capital is earmarked for technology development and expansion into the US market.
How it ended up
Still live and scaling: as of June 2025 Melian operates in Argentina with more than four million indexed products, plans to use the seed capital to enter the US, and had announced no shutdown or pivot.
Background
Melian was founded in late 2024 by three Argentine entrepreneurs aged 19 to 24 — Santiago Ruberto, Mateo Zarate and Valentín Ratti — on the bet that online shopping discovery is broken. Fashion inventory in Argentina sits scattered across thousands of independent boutiques and emerging designers, so finding and comparing products is a manual slog.
The company's answer is an AI-powered app that centralizes that long tail: more than four million products from over 7,500 stores in one searchable catalog, with natural-language search, visual recognition, personalized recommendations and a WhatsApp chatbot that handles customer questions and leads. It launched with fashion because that category is the most fragmented.
Since relaunching its current version in December 2024, Melian says it has processed more than one million searches, with thousands of users starting purchases each month, and became the third most downloaded shopping app in Argentina. In June 2025, Mexican VC Hi Ventures led a $2M seed round, with Guillermo Rauch, CEO of Vercel, participating; earlier rounds added more than $615K from Newtopia VC and Broom Ventures.
The new capital is earmarked for technology development and entry into the US market. As of June 2025 the company is live and scaling in Argentina, with no shutdown or pivot announced.
What has to be true
- The founders picked the most fragmented category first: fashion, where thousands of independent stores have no discovery channel, makes a single index immediately valuable.
- AI is the differentiator rather than a feature: natural-language search, visual recognition and a WhatsApp sales bot attack discovery, comparison and conversion at once.
- Early traction preceded the raise — one million searches and third place among Argentina's shopping apps since the December 2024 relaunch — giving investors evidence of product-market fit.
- A Mexican VC lead plus Guillermo Rauch signal the regional and US ambition: the same fragmentation logic applies to bigger markets.
What can be applied
When supply is fragmented and demand unserved, index everything first: become the single search layer over the long tail of stores, then carry the playbook to the next market.
Aftermath
As of 12 June 2025, Melian is live and scaling in Argentina: more than four million products from 7,500+ stores indexed, one million+ searches processed since its December 2024 relaunch, and third place among Argentina's most downloaded shopping apps. The $2M seed from Hi Ventures with Guillermo Rauch is slated for technology development and a US expansion, on top of earlier rounds totaling more than $615K from Newtopia VC and Broom Ventures.
Sources
- Startup argentina de inteligencia artificial levanta US$2M en ronda liderada por fondo mexicano
- CuradurIA: una startup argentina de e-commerce con IA levanta dos millones de dólares para desembarcar en EE.UU.
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe what you are building, and see who is betting on the same thing.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card