Accel Leads n8n at $2.3 Billion Pre-Money

Four months ago, n8n was worth €300 million. Today? Investment firms are throwing term sheets at the Berlin startup with valuations approaching $3 billion.

The AI workflow automation company has received more than ten offers for its Series C round, according to sources familiar with the talks. Insight Partners' term sheet valued n8n at $2.74B pre-money, per Sifted. Bloomberg reports Accel won the lead with a $2.3 billion pre-money valuation. Either way, we're talking about an 8x jump since March.

For a company pulling in $40 million in annual recurring revenue, that math looks wild. We're seeing revenue multiples north of 70x. Even in this AI gold rush, that's aggressive.

The Allgäu Nerd Who Automated Hollywood

Jan Oberhauser didn't set out to build a unicorn. The self-described "nerd" from Germany's Allgäu region — think Alpine meadows and dairy farms, not startup hubs — taught himself programming at 14.

Years later, he was doing special effects for films. All manual work at first. Frame by frame, pixel by pixel. Mind-numbing stuff. Then he noticed something: he kept writing the same automation scripts over and over. Different movies, same tedious processes. "I realized I was always programming and simplifying the same things," Oberhauser said.

Here's the thing about Oberhauser — and I heard this from someone who worked with him early on — he'd rather spend three days automating a five-minute task than do the task twice. Classic programmer mindset, but taken to an extreme. His first users weren't enterprises. They were film editors who'd heard through Reddit that some German guy had built this weird open-source thing that could chain together their scattered tools.

The existing automation platforms? Zapier was around. So was IFTTT. But Oberhauser found them "not convincing." Translation: they annoyed him. So in 2019, he built n8n.

Actually, wait — that timeline doesn't capture what really happened. N8n started as a side project while Oberhauser was still freelancing. No grand vision. No pitch deck. Just a tool he needed that didn't exist. The "company" was him coding in his Berlin apartment, living off savings from his VFX work.

And one term sheet reportedly came with a condition nobody expected.

Why VCs Are Fighting

The numbers tell part of the story. N8n claims 230,000 active users and 3,000 enterprise customers including Vodafone, Delivery Hero, and Microsoft. Revenue grew fivefold last year.

But that's not why Accel and Insight are wrestling over this deal.

The Real Play

Here's what's actually happening. Everyone's talking about AI agents — these autonomous systems that supposedly do work for you. OpenAI says they're coming. Google says they're coming. Microsoft's all in. But there's a problem nobody wants to admit: agents are useless in isolation.

Think about it. An AI agent that writes emails? Cool. One that analyzes spreadsheets? Great. One that updates your CRM? Fine. But your actual workflow involves all three, plus seventeen other tools, and they need to talk to each other. That's where n8n comes in.

The company isn't building agents. It's building the nervous system they'll run on. The plumbing. The rails. Whatever metaphor works for you. And VCs are betting this layer matters more than the agents themselves.

"Agents have been widely seen as the next frontier of AI, following chatbots," Bloomberg notes. True. But incomplete. The real frontier is making agents useful in the messy reality of enterprise software. N8n's pitch: we're already there. While everyone else talks about the future, we're shipping to Vodafone.

The competitive dynamics get interesting here. Ten VCs threw term sheets at the company, with Accel reportedly winning at $2.3B while Insight's term sheet valued n8n at $2.74B pre-money. These aren't spray-and-pray seed investors. These are firms that write $100 million checks. Meritech Capital wants in. Existing investors like Sequoia Capital, Highland Europe, and HV Capital are protecting their stakes.

By the way, remember that unusual condition I mentioned? One investor allegedly wanted guaranteed board control regardless of dilution. Not typical for a Series C. Shows how badly they want this.

European AI's Moment

N8n's funding isn't happening in isolation. European AI startups have raised €4 billion this year. Already topped 2023's total.

Just recently: France's Mistral sought $1 billion. Germany's Helsing doubled to €12 billion. Sweden's Lovable hit unicorn status. The geography matters. While Silicon Valley debates AI safety and Washington debates regulation, Berlin's shipping product.

The 75x Question

Let's talk about that valuation.

At $40 million ARR and a $3 billion valuation, n8n sports a 75x revenue multiple. Salesforce trades at 8x. Even high-flying SaaS companies rarely breach 30x. This is either prescient or insane.

Two possibilities. First, the growth trajectory. N8n 5x'd revenue last year. If it maintains anything close — even 3x — today's multiple shrinks fast. Do the math: hit $120 million ARR next year, suddenly you're at 25x. Still high but not absurd.

Second possibility: this isn't about revenue multiples at all. It's about position. VCs are betting AI agents become as fundamental as databases were in the '90s. Whoever owns the orchestration layer wins. Think MongoDB for AI workflows. Or actually — no, that's wrong. Think bigger. Think AWS for automation.

The risk? Everything. Maybe agents don't deliver. Maybe enterprises stick with traditional automation. Maybe Microsoft builds this into Office. At 75x revenue, there's no maybe.

Actually, there's a third possibility I hadn't considered until now. What if the VCs know something we don't? Not about n8n specifically, but about enterprise AI adoption rates. What if internal data from portfolio companies shows a massive acceleration coming? Pure speculation, but it would explain the feeding frenzy.

What Happens Next

The funding should close within weeks. N8n gets the cash, hires like crazy, opens a Silicon Valley office. Standard playbook.

But here's what I'm watching: can a German company crack enterprise sales in America? It's harder than VCs admit. Different culture. Different expectations. Different everything. SAP did it, but that took decades. N8n needs to do it in quarters.

The competition's coming fast. Every workflow automation company is bolting on AI. Microsoft's Power Automate. Zapier. Make. Workato. They're all racing toward the same destination. N8n's advantage? Focus. While others retrofit, n8n built for this moment.

Why this matters:

• If AI agents are the next platform shift, whoever controls the orchestration layer becomes the new kingmaker — and n8n just got valued like VCs believe it's them.

• European startups raising at Valley valuations with Valley competition marks a permanent power shift. Geography doesn't matter anymore — execution does.

At 75x revenue, n8n doesn't get to be wrong. Or boring. Or even slow.