Inngest's $21M Series A and the AI Workflow Revolution

The rise of AI has fundamentally changed how we build software. Code generation tools make it easier than ever to prototype and ship initial versions, but they've also introduced a critical challenge: AI adds a layer of non-determinism to software that makes software workflows brittle and unreliable. In this new landscape, durable workflow orchestration has become a prerequisite for production AI systems.

That's why, after leading Inngest’s Seed round, I'm excited that Notable has doubled down in Inngest's $21M Series A, and that I've joined the board of the company.

Inngest, built by Tony Holdstock-Brown and Dan Farrelly, provides a workflow orchestration engine specifically designed for serverless applications and AI agents. Think of it as the reliability layer that sits between your application logic and your infrastructure, ensuring that complex, multi-step processes run smoothly even when individual components fail or behave unpredictably.

Whether you're building traditional web applications or AI-powered agents, Inngest handles the hard parts: retries, error handling, state management, and coordination between different services. Companies like Soundcloud, Tripadvisor, Contentful, and Resend rely on Inngest to power their core workflows reliably at scale.

The AI Catalyst

When we first invested in Inngest in 2023, we saw the urgent need for better orchestration tools in the serverless ecosystem. Companies like Vercel*, Neon*, and Supabase were providing powerful primitives, but developers still lacked the complementary infrastructure to turn these building blocks into fully-featured, reliable applications. 

What we didn't fully anticipate was how dramatically LLMs would accelerate this need. The AI revolution has transformed engineering in two fundamental ways:

1. Faster iteration cycles: While it's easier than ever to build initial prototypes, the real challenge has shifted to scaling and iterating rapidly while maintaining reliability.
2. Non-deterministic complexity: AI adds unpredictability to software, making durable workflows a prerequisite rather than an afterthought.

In an AI-centric world, Inngest's adaptive execution engine has become essential infrastructure. Companies building autonomous agents—like Day.ai and Browser Use—rely on Inngest to handle the complex, multi-step workflows that make AI applications actually work in production.

The Competitive Shift

The competitive plane for software has fundamentally shifted. The best AI engineering teams need infrastructure that can embrace change and uncertainty, building reliable, adaptable workflows without relying on fragile, unintuitive abstractions.

This is where Tony and Dan continue to excel—shipping exceptional developer tools with the speed and intuition that complex problems demand. Even at the earliest days, when the team was just three people, Inngest had among the best developer experiences we’d ever seen in a serverless tool. The Inngest platform is expanding rapidly, with major announcements coming in the next week that will further cement its position as essential AI infrastructure.

We're thrilled to be partnering with our friends at Altimeter, a16z, and Afore to support Inngest's next phase of growth. In a world where AI is reshaping how we build software, Inngest provides the reliability foundation that lets developers focus on innovation rather than infrastructure headaches.

We couldn't be more excited to deepen our support with the team as they continue to define the future of workflow orchestration.