The Berlin startup n8n, founded in 2019 by Jan Oberhauser, has just raised 180 million dollars, or around 153 million euros, in series C. This round of funding, led by the Accel investment fund, brings together Meritech, Redpoint, Evantic and Visionaries Club. NVIDIA, via its NVentures fund, and T.Capital are also joining the operation, alongside historic investors Felicis Ventures, Sequoia, Highland Europe and HV Capital. This fundraising brings the total funds raised to 204 million euros and values n8n at 2.1 billion euros.
Since its creation, n8n has established itself as a benchmark in business process automation. Its open source and No-Code approach makes it possible to model and automate complex workflows without advanced technical expertise. The platform connects to more than 220 tools, from LinkedIn to GitHub, and is aimed at both technical and business teams.
Where some platforms rely on total autonomy of artificial intelligence and others on entirely coded logic, n8n defends a hybrid model which makes it possible to define the degree of autonomy granted to agents and to associate human supervision mechanisms.
“The race for AI is not just about smarter models, but about the ability to make them reliable in real environments,” emphasizes Jan Oberhauser. For him, the challenge is no longer to train more efficient models, but to orchestrate them effectively within organizations.
This orchestration is based on two pillars, that of connecting agents to business tools and data, and coordination between business experts and developers. These dimensions make it possible to integrate AI into operational flows while maintaining human control over critical processes.
In 2024, n8n will increase its number of users sixfold and its revenues tenfold. The company has also introduced several new features, including the Evaluations and Data Tables modules, intended to facilitate the production of automated workflows. The funding must accelerate the development of integrations, the launch of new collaborative interfaces and the structuring of an ecosystem around the platform.
“Just as Excel has become a universal skill, the mastery of AI agents will become one,” believes Jan Oberhauser. “Our ambition is for n8n to become the reference platform for building and deploying them. »
n8n is positioned in a booming market, where players like LangChain, Dust, Retool AI and Make are emerging. The latter remains its main direct competitor, with a wider range of integrations, but a closed model. n8n, for its part, focuses on the flexibility of deployment, the openness of the code and the transparency of its community.
