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N8n raises $180M

blog.n8n.io

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Re: N8n raises $180M

#131

Post by kristopherleads »

cap11235 wrote: post #113
kristopherleads wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also just not where the product needs to go. When a lot of users get frustrated and jump back to high-code environments ( https://www.reddit.com/r/n8n/comments/1mcm9d2/why_i_left_n8n... ), that points to high-friction and not enough control. Iterating in just AI for AI's sake isn't going to fix that.

Behold the cargo cult. DAGs are not new at all, and N8N doesn't haven't any "special sauce". Its AI integration is kind of a joke, since its similar to what my phone tacked on as "features": summarization and translation and visual style editing. For serious usage in an ML system, you want gradients and experiments to be run, and N8N is not that. It feels like systemd got reimplemented with a GUI and a lot of gaffer…

That's how I explained it to someone else recently - a lot of solutions on the hype train right now feel like they're made with duct tape and popsicle sticks.

Re: N8n raises $180M

#132

Post by kristopherleads »

cap11235 wrote: post #107
kristopherleads wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full disclosure, I'm incredibly biased here as I'm a DevRel at FlowFuse, but there's a reason I joined them instead of n8n. On the surface they're comparable, but I think Node-RED (and FlowFuse) is a better solution for a lot of reasons: First off, Node-RED handles real-time event data much, much better in my experience. Because of where Node-RED came from, there's much better support for IoT, MQTT, Modbus, OPC UA, e…

I'm not legally biased similarly (work in finance), and I prefer NodeRED. To me, the black box thing is very significant in the feel of using the tool. When I work on a N8N workflow, it feels like I'm chaining gmail filters. Where as NodeRED, I can mentally map that better to what is actually being run, and so feels more like using ComfyUI's custom node capability. I feel like N8N wants to be no-code, where as NodeRE…

Yeah, exactly! What's so funny to me is that people who think they want no-code really don't want no-code. Because no-code is built for that - but even novices in coding will really quickly outstrip a no-code native environment, whereas low-code will scale with your learning,

No-code: "I don't need code, this is so easy!" 2 weeks later "I wish I had access to literally any code system to make this work."

Low-code: "I don't need code, this is so easy!" 2 weeks later "Oh awesome I can actually use code here!"

Re: N8n raises $180M

#133

Post by seer »

While n8n is amazing for the odd office automation and giving semi-technical people an enormously powerful tool to get things done, it seems it can’t really replace a real backend, and mostly because of the n8n team choices than any technology.

We were trailing it and wanted to essentially switch our entire backend to it - and technically it seemed to be able to do the job, but their licensing turned out to not be a fit.

For a moderately used app we very quickly burned through their “executions” that were allotted by our license - and that’s where we host it ourselves, configuring and paying for the servers, load balancers, key value store and database, with its failovers and backups.

So the license was to use it on top of all that, and even their highest enterprise license was cutting it close, and if you “run out” of these executions, the service just stops working …

And all of that would have been fair if it was hosted, but sounds ludicrous to me for something we self host.

I think it is an incredible piece of tech, but just not suited for a dynamic startup, and once we spent the time to code up the alternative paths for our use cases, it no longer made sense to use n8n at all, as we mostly solved all the problems it was helping us with.

Re: N8n raises $180M

#134

Post by dvcoolarun »

Two days ago, with the launch of OpenAI’s AgentKit, people were claiming that similar tools and startups would become obsolete.

I think the pie is big enough for everyone to benefit.

I haven’t tried these agent-and-connector-based approaches yet — where should someone start to get a good grasp of this kind of automation?

Re: N8n raises $180M

#135

Post by bix6 »

kamranjon wrote: post #3

I’m just wondering if anyone that is closer to this space could shed some light on if this $2.5B valuation seems more or less accurate? I have played around with n8n - I just didn’t know if it was ubiquitous/profitable. $180m round seemed pretty huge but maybe it’s really a unicorn?

> Founded in 2019, n8n helps companies automate repetitive computing tasks. As of March, it had more than 230,000 active users and reported annual recurring revenue of over $40 million. The focus for the fresh funding will be on expanding its engineering capabilities and hiring.

$40M rev makes this a 62.5x rev multiple. AI has been around 40x lately so it’s a bit high but it sounds like there was competition to lead and those are March numbers so it’s probably about on par.

Personally I find these multiples absurd but big VC needs to put money somewhere and AI is the new SaaS so here we are.

> The Series C comes less than a year after a $60 million Series B, which valued the German group at a reported $350 million.

That’s a huge step up so maybe their growth numbers are that good.

https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/ai-agent-startup-n8n-lan...

Re: N8n raises $180M

#136

Post by jitl »

seer wrote: post #133

While n8n is amazing for the odd office automation and giving semi-technical people an enormously powerful tool to get things done, it seems it can’t really replace a real backend, and mostly because of the n8n team choices than any technology. We were trailing it and wanted to essentially switch our entire backend to it - and technically it seemed to be able to do the job, but their licensing turned out to not be a…

Surely you can negotiate an unlimited amount of executions?

Re: N8n raises $180M

#137

Post by vini »

seer wrote: post #133

While n8n is amazing for the odd office automation and giving semi-technical people an enormously powerful tool to get things done, it seems it can’t really replace a real backend, and mostly because of the n8n team choices than any technology. We were trailing it and wanted to essentially switch our entire backend to it - and technically it seemed to be able to do the job, but their licensing turned out to not be a…

It seems crazy to me that they impose imaginary limits on the self-hosted version, you can have a server that can handle more executions, but the license won't allow it.

Re: N8n raises $180M

#138

Post by rkuodys »

seer wrote: post #133

While n8n is amazing for the odd office automation and giving semi-technical people an enormously powerful tool to get things done, it seems it can’t really replace a real backend, and mostly because of the n8n team choices than any technology. We were trailing it and wanted to essentially switch our entire backend to it - and technically it seemed to be able to do the job, but their licensing turned out to not be a…

Facing similar issue with monitoring part of executions. What is your solution if I may as - have you taken smth of the shelf and extended to your needs or did you built from the ground up everything?

Re: N8n raises $180M

#140

Post by bix6 »

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #98

For me the Math isn’t Mathing. Hiring 50 fairly well paid developers is roughly $15M/year, maybe more if one insists on SV compensation which always seem a bit absurd. $240M total funding is a lot of money. They’ve only been around for about 5 years and probably didn’t start out fully staffed. So they’re basically covered for the next 10-15 years even if they had zero sales ? Having 500 employees won’t speed things u…

This money will be gone in 2-3 years! They say engineering but I bet half goes to marketing.

> The focus for the fresh funding will be on expanding its engineering capabilities and hiring.

https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/ai-agent-startup-n8n-lan...

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