Melian

Melian is an AI-powered shopping discovery platform aiming to consolidate the fragmented e-commerce market into a single, cohesive interface. The company was founded in 2023 by a young team from Argentina: Santiago Ruberto (CEO), Mateo Zarate (CTO), and Valentín Ratti (CPO). The founders made history as the youngest team to raise venture capital in their home country.

The company, which initially operated under the name Sirvana, developed a platform that aggregates products from numerous online stores, allowing users to discover, search, and purchase items without navigating multiple websites. The inspiration for the new name, Melian, came from the street of the hacker house in Belgrano where the founders lived and worked. Initially focusing on Argentina's apparel market, the platform aggregated over 260,000 products from more than 800 stores. Since its launch in December 2024, the app has achieved over 20,000 downloads.

Melian's business model centers on creating a superior and centralized shopping experience. The platform utilizes AI for natural language search, image-based product discovery, and personalized recommendations, addressing common pain points in online shopping. In May 2025, the company secured $2 million in a seed funding round led by Hi Ventures, with participation from notable angel investors like Guillermo Rauch, the founder of Vercel. This capital is intended to fuel technological development and support expansion into the U.S. market, a strategic pivot that includes relocating the team to a hacker house in Silicon Valley. Following this strategic shift, the company has expanded its aggregation to 7,500 stores and 4 million products for its U.S. launch.

Keywords: e-commerce aggregation, AI shopping platform, product discovery, multi-retailer marketplace, natural language search shopping, Santiago Ruberto, Mateo Zarate, Valentín Ratti, Sirvana, Hi Ventures, online apparel market, centralized shopping, shopping search engine, image-based product discovery, personalized recommendations, cross-platform shopping, e-commerce aggregator, AI shopping assistant, unified cart, online retail platform