Ambitious, global, and still deeply rooted in Europe – that’s the story of n8n, an AI workflow automation startup based in Berlin. Founded by Jan Oberhauser in 2019, the company has quickly grown into a standout in the tech world, with backing from Nvidia and a recent $2.5 billion valuation. But while many European startups see the US as their ultimate destination, n8n’s CEO has other plans. He wants to go public in Europe.
This approach challenges the well-beaten path of European startups flipping to Delaware incorporation and aiming for Nasdaq listings. For any European entrepreneur, particularly women founders juggling the challenges of scaling businesses while holding onto their values, there’s much to learn from n8n’s story. Let’s dig in.
Why Staying Close to Home Matters
Oberhauser’s decision to keep n8n grounded in Europe illustrates a powerful trend among startups aiming to grow without losing their identity. For entrepreneurs, especially women like me, founder of Fe/male Switch, starting and scaling a business means choosing where and how you want that growth to take shape. Europe, with its focus on data privacy, sustainability, and corporate accountability, offers fertile ground for startups that prioritize long-term success over glitzy early wins.
Oberhauser turned down Y Combinator, citing the requirement to incorporate in Delaware. For him, being a European company, both in culture and structure, was key. This resonates strongly with many founders who have faced the tension between VC demands and staying true to their own vision.
The Numbers Behind the Buzz
Backing such a bold public vision is strong growth. Here’s where n8n stands right now:
- Year Founded: 2019
- Total Funding: $240 million
- Valuation: $2.5 billion after the latest $180 million Series C round.
- Customer Base: Over 3,000 paying enterprise clients, including Vodafone and emerging European AI players like Mistral.
- Community Strength: More than 700,000 developers use its platform to automate their workflows.
For ambitious startup founders, these numbers showcase two things: the scale of opportunity within automation and the payoff of patience when it comes to funding. For bootstrappers especially, the focus on delivering real value before chasing astronomical funding rounds can be the difference between staying aligned with your values or becoming another portfolio pawn.
Lessons for European Women Founders
If you’re looking to grow your venture in Europe, or avoiding the pressure to head stateside, here are some lessons Oberhauser’s approach offers:
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Resist Geographic FOMO
Not every big success story needs a Silicon Valley address. European startups, particularly those in regulated markets like financial tech or AI, thrive by leveraging local strengths. For example, if you’re growing a startup tied to health data, like I did with my previous venture, Europe’s strict privacy standards can be your ally, not a barrier. -
Build Before Bragging
n8n grew its user base and open-source traction quietly, focusing on delivering value to developers and enterprises before chasing higher valuations. Founders, especially women navigating industry bias, can use this principle to focus conversations with investors on metrics that truly matter. -
Define Your Funding Rules First
Venture capital offers an incredible boost, but only when it fits your long-term goals. Oberhauser waited for the right moment and the right partners, even when it meant walking away from big-name firms. At Fe/male Switch, we believe in helping entrepreneurs build without giving up their independence – and n8n is proof that this works.
How Female Entrepreneurs Can Use These Insights
Focusing on automation may not be part of every entrepreneur’s roadmap, but the idea of systematizing and optimizing your business? That’s universal. And it’s particularly relevant to women founders, who often juggle disproportionate personal and professional demands.
Here are a few practical tips inspired by n8n’s model:
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Use Automation Smartly
Free up your brainpower for the tasks only you can do. Tools like n8n are great for automating repetitive tasks like CRM integrations, email workflows, or even sending out proposals. -
Understand Your Community Early
Whether you run a platform, offer a service, or create physical products, your most loyal users can become your biggest growth champions. Recall that n8n’s open-source community contributed significantly to its rise. -
Start with Scalable Processes
As someone who bootstrapped multiple businesses to revenue, I’ve seen how manual workflows can hold a growing business back. Map out processes that you can delegate to technology later, it’s less stressful than trying to streamline everything during scaling chaos.
Mistakes You Can Avoid
From my experience building CADChain to running an online incubator aimed at women, I’ve noticed some common mistakes founders make when trying to strike the independence vs. scale balance:
- Over-focusing on US Expansion: For certain sectors, the US is a natural market. But rushing in without a foothold in Europe weakens your leverage back home.
- Chasing Validation from Big-Name Firms: The prestige of well-known accelerators or VCs sounds tempting but doesn’t always lead to better business outcomes.
- Ignoring Timing in Fundraising: Raising too early locks you into specific growth expectations that might be out of sync with your actual development speed.
Conclusion
n8n’s story isn’t just a tech success, it’s a guide for founders navigating identity, growth, and values. Entrepreneurs, especially women, should see it as a reminder: You can think big, stay local, and scale global all at once.
For founders ready to explore the next steps of building smarter, automated businesses, or for those curious about different ways to grow, start now by asking: What does success look like on your terms? As n8n has shown, the answers may be closer to home than you’d think.
If you’re interested in honing your entrepreneurial skills within the European market, consider engaging with platforms like Fe/male Switch or exploring automation for your workflows through solutions like n8n. Choose tools and strategies that empower you, not the other way around, and watch your startup thrive under your own rules.
FAQ
1. What is n8n, and who founded it?
n8n is a workflow automation platform that helps enterprises integrate and automate processes using artificial intelligence. It was founded by Jan Oberhauser in 2019 in Berlin, Germany. Visit the n8n official website
2. What are n8n's plans regarding an IPO?
n8n's CEO, Jan Oberhauser, has expressed a commitment to pursuing a European listing for the company, ideally in Germany, resisting the trend of European startups flipping to US entities for Nasdaq IPOs. Learn more about n8n's plans
3. What is the valuation of n8n after its latest funding round?
After raising $180 million in a Series C round, n8n's valuation stands at $2.5 billion.
4. Who are some of n8n's notable investors?
n8n is backed by prominent investors, including Nvidia's VC arm, Accel, Visionaries Club, and Sequoia Capital. Read about the funding details
5. How many developers use n8n's platform?
n8n has a community of over 700,000 developers actively using its platform to create automation workflows. Learn about the n8n developer community
6. Who are some of n8n's major clients?
n8n's notable clients include Vodafone, Microsoft, and European AI startups like Mistral.
7. Why did n8n's CEO turn down Y Combinator?
Jan Oberhauser declined Y Combinator due to their requirement to incorporate in Delaware, as he wanted to maintain n8n's European identity and values.
8. What is n8n's revenue model?
n8n operates on a hybrid commercial/open-source model, catering both to enterprises with paid solutions and to a broader community with free tools.
9. What industries benefit most from n8n's automation platform?
n8n is used across various industries, including telecommunications, AI, and cybersecurity, for automating workflows and improving operational efficiency.
10. What makes n8n a unique AI platform?
n8n empowers organizations to easily integrate and manage AI tasks by allowing custom workflows without requiring extensive coding expertise. It aims to be the "Excel for AI." Explore n8n's potential
About the Author
Violetta Bonenkamp, also known as MeanCEO, is an experienced startup founder with an impressive educational background including an MBA and four other higher education degrees. She has over 20 years of work experience across multiple countries, including 5 years as a solopreneur and serial entrepreneur. Throughout her startup experience she has applied for multiple startup grants at the EU level, in the Netherlands and Malta, and her startups received quite a few of those. She’s been living, studying and working in many countries around the globe and her extensive multicultural experience has influenced her immensely.
Violetta Bonenkamp's expertise in CAD sector, IP protection and blockchain
Violetta Bonenkamp is recognized as a multidisciplinary expert with significant achievements in the CAD sector, intellectual property (IP) protection, and blockchain technology.
CAD Sector:
- Violetta is the CEO and co-founder of CADChain, a deep tech startup focused on developing IP management software specifically for CAD (Computer-Aided Design) data. CADChain addresses the lack of industry standards for CAD data protection and sharing, using innovative technology to secure and manage design data.
- She has led the company since its inception in 2018, overseeing R&D, PR, and business development, and driving the creation of products for platforms such as Autodesk Inventor, Blender, and SolidWorks.
- Her leadership has been instrumental in scaling CADChain from a small team to a significant player in the deeptech space, with a diverse, international team.
IP Protection:
- Violetta has built deep expertise in intellectual property, combining academic training with practical startup experience. She has taken specialized courses in IP from institutions like WIPO and the EU IPO.
- She is known for sharing actionable strategies for startup IP protection, leveraging both legal and technological approaches, and has published guides and content on this topic for the entrepreneurial community.
- Her work at CADChain directly addresses the need for robust IP protection in the engineering and design industries, integrating cybersecurity and compliance measures to safeguard digital assets.
Blockchain:
- Violetta’s entry into the blockchain sector began with the founding of CADChain, which uses blockchain as a core technology for securing and managing CAD data.
- She holds several certifications in blockchain and has participated in major hackathons and policy forums, such as the OECD Global Blockchain Policy Forum.
- Her expertise extends to applying blockchain for IP management, ensuring data integrity, traceability, and secure sharing in the CAD industry.
Violetta is a true multiple specialist who has built expertise in Linguistics, Education, Business Management, Blockchain, Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property, Game Design, AI, SEO, Digital Marketing, cyber security and zero code automations. Her extensive educational journey includes a Master of Arts in Linguistics and Education, an Advanced Master in Linguistics from Belgium (2006-2007), an MBA from Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden (2006-2008), and an Erasmus Mundus joint program European Master of Higher Education from universities in Norway, Finland, and Portugal (2009).
She is the founder of Fe/male Switch, a startup game that encourages women to enter STEM fields, and also leads CADChain, and multiple other projects like the Directory of 1,000 Startup Cities with a proprietary MeanCEO Index that ranks cities for female entrepreneurs. Violetta created the "gamepreneurship" methodology, which forms the scientific basis of her startup game. She also builds a lot of SEO tools for startups. Her achievements include being named one of the top 100 women in Europe by EU Startups in 2022 and being nominated for Impact Person of the year at the Dutch Blockchain Week. She is an author with Sifted and a speaker at different Universities. Recently she published a book on Startup Idea Validation the right way: from zero to first customers and beyond, launched a Directory of 1,500+ websites for startups to list themselves in order to gain traction and build backlinks and is building MELA AI to help local restaurants in Malta get more visibility online.
For the past several years Violetta has been living between the Netherlands and Malta, while also regularly traveling to different destinations around the globe, usually due to her entrepreneurial activities. This has led her to start writing about different locations and amenities from the POV of an entrepreneur. Here’s her recent article about the best hotels in Italy to work from.
About the Publication
Fe/male Switch is an innovative startup platform designed to empower women entrepreneurs through an immersive, game-like experience. Founded in 2020 during the pandemic "without any funding and without any code," this non-profit initiative has evolved into a comprehensive educational tool for aspiring female entrepreneurs.The platform was co-founded by Violetta Shishkina-Bonenkamp, who serves as CEO and one of the lead authors of the Startup News branch.
Mission and Purpose
Fe/male Switch Foundation was created to address the gender gap in the tech and entrepreneurship space. The platform aims to skill-up future female tech leaders and empower them to create resilient and innovative tech startups through what they call "gamepreneurship". By putting players in a virtual startup village where they must survive and thrive, the startup game allows women to test their entrepreneurial abilities without financial risk.
Key Features
The platform offers a unique blend of news, resources,learning, networking, and practical application within a supportive, female-focused environment:
- Skill Lab: Micro-modules covering essential startup skills
- Virtual Startup Building: Create or join startups and tackle real-world challenges
- AI Co-founder (PlayPal): Guides users through the startup process
- SANDBOX: A testing environment for idea validation before launch
- Wellness Integration: Virtual activities to balance work and self-care
- Marketplace: Buy or sell expert sessions and tutorials
Impact and Growth
Since its inception, Fe/male Switch has shown impressive growth:
- 5,000+ female entrepreneurs in the community
- 100+ startup tools built
- 5,000+ pieces of articles and news written
- 1,000 unique business ideas for women created
Partnerships
Fe/male Switch has formed strategic partnerships to enhance its offerings. In January 2022, it teamed up with global website builder Tilda to provide free access to website building tools and mentorship services for Fe/male Switch participants.
Recognition
Fe/male Switch has received media attention for its innovative approach to closing the gender gap in tech entrepreneurship. The platform has been featured in various publications highlighting its unique "play to learn and earn" model.
