Fair-code pioneer n8n raises $60M for AI-powered workflow automation

Developer tooling is altering quickly with AI. So firms which might be making it simpler to undertake AI of their workflows are seeing a growth of consideration. After a startup referred to as n8n (pronounced “enay-ten”) pivoted its workflow automation platform to turn out to be extra AI-friendly in 2022, it mentioned it noticed its revenues improve 5X, doubling within the final two months alone. 

Now on the again of that development, TechCrunch has confirmed that n8n has raised €55 million ($60 million) in funding on a valuation sources near the corporate inform us is within the area of €250 million ($270 million). 

Berlin-based n8n mentioned it now has greater than 3,000 enterprise prospects and round 200,000 lively customers on its books. The startup will likely be utilizing this Collection B to proceed investing in tech and to develop in newer markets just like the U.S., dwelling to greater than half of n8n’s consumer base. The corporate doesn’t disclose revenues, and that buyer quantity consists of each free and paying customers, in addition to these taking short-term and longer-term subscriptions.

Highland Europe is main this newest spherical, with HV Capital and former backers Sequoia, Felicis, and Harpoon additionally taking part. Sequoia led the seed round for n8n in 2020; Felicis the Series A in 2021. 

The startup, based in 2019, picked up traction in its early years from developer groups that have been in search of low-code and no-code automation options to make it simpler to sew functions collectively in methods with out a whole lot of onerous coding.

It picked up consideration for one more cause, too: N8n had constructed a repute by being carefully tied to the idea of “fair code.” 

Honest code is a development of open source. Software program builders use open supply code without spending a dime, however after they need to commercialize work constructed on high of it, it establishes rules for compensating the open supply creators or neighborhood. Jan Oberhauser, the founder and CEO of n8n, got here up with the thought and runs a site devoted to truthful code. 

However whereas n8n itself is constructed on truthful code and leans into the open supply neighborhood to develop by phrase of mouth — it has greater than 70,000 “stars” on GitHub — the corporate says that it was weaving in AI that grew to become its rocket ship. 

AI, and particularly generative AI, is a transparent complement to automation — one thing that shut rivals like Tines and Workato have additionally embraced, as have others within the wider automation world like UiPath. 

If automation and low-code approaches have erased among the busy work of pulling collectively how completely different apps or companies labored collectively, generative AI brings even much less technicality into the combination. 

A yr and a half in the past, Oberhauser mentioned, “we may see this AI factor coming at us.” He shortly surmised that the candy spot can be to work it into its merchandise, to begin to scale back the quantity of labor it took builders to implement automations by turning directions into pure language. 

“It’s a immediate to construct workflow,” is how Oberhauser describes it. “Folks don’t really want to write down 50 strains of code to combine the performance of, say, sending an e mail.” Now in pure language, you possibly can write “get info from X and ship it to Y,” he mentioned. “We see the worth in making modifications to that extra simply.” 

The product was constructed with a mix of LLMs in thoughts, and the thought is that if finish customers are already constructing companies utilizing one LLM or one other, it may be swapped in to work with n8n’s platform. And like a variety of different developer-focused platforms, n8n has a reasonably in depth contributor community which might be lively on platforms like GitHub, become involved in boards to assist different builders with their questions, and construct and use workflow templates constructed by others. (N8n additionally has pre-built a variety of workflow templates.)

Even with all of the hype and hope round synthetic intelligence and GenAI nowadays, the AI-powered model of n8n took some time to stay, with just about no take-up in any respect at first. Then final yr, there was sudden a tipping level. 

Why? Maybe the burden of a few tendencies coming collectively. There was the burst of chatter round AI in coding, with firms like Poolside, Codeium, and Magic all elevating large cash inside months of one another. After which inside finish customers themselves, the mantra to determine methods to use AI additionally grew to become louder. 

However there may be a whole lot of hype and speak on the market, too, and so finally n8n’s ease of use and usefulness appears to be what has sealed the take care of customers, but in addition traders.

“Everyone seems to be making an attempt to leverage AI however struggling to search out sensible use circumstances,” David Blyghton, the final accomplice at Highland who led the lead, advised me over a telephone name. “The design, scale and throughput of n8n is what permits individuals to undertake it.”

Oberhauser admits that though “it took some time for the market to catch up,” now he says that round 75% of all of n8n’s prospects are utilizing the AI instruments they’ve constructed.