Very few companies in European tech are capable of instigating VCs into an all-out bidding war — but in recent weeks, German AI startup N8n did just that.
The workflow automation platform — which helps enterprises connect apps and deploy AI agents — saw valuations being offered by deal-hungry investors skyrocket from $1.5bn at the start of the fundraise to just under $3bn, people familiar with the talks told Sifted.
In the end, Accel won out, beating Insight Partners to lead the deal at a $2.3bn pre-money price tag.
N8n is among a new wave of European AI application startups — which build tools around models made by the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic — that’ve increasingly been raising chunky rounds as investors bet big on their potential to change how enterprises do work and hit revenue milestones in rapid time.
Industry insiders tell Sifted they expect a number of new European AI application startups valued at $1bn or more in the next year.
So how did investors reach that lofty valuation for N8n?
N8n’s numbers
N8n connects the different apps and data sources that enterprises use so they can pass information between each other and do things automatically. While the startup can link AI models to company workflows, it doesn’t use them to run its platform.
Founded in 2019, N8n is up against rivals like UiPath, Workato, Tines and Tray. The company is not an AI-native startup but integrated large language models around 2022 to move to AI-augmented workflow automation.
That shift has seen the Berlin-based startup’s ARR skyrocket in recent times. N8n, which did not respond to a request for comment for this piece, said its ARR had grown five times in the previous 12 months when it raised a €55m Series B in March 2025, at a €300m valuation.
ARR reportedly surpassed $40m in the run up to its Series C fundraise. If N8n’s valuation hits a $2.3bn pre-money valuation, as first reported by Bloomberg, that’s a 57.5x revenue multiple.
That is comparable with other highly prized workflow platforms. US AI enterprise search platform Glean raised $150m in June at a $7.2bn valuation, which works out as a 72x revenue multiple based on its most recently reported ARR of $100m from February.
Those kinds of revenue multiples aren’t new. Romanian-founded UiPath hit a multiple of 57.6x its revenue when it raised $750m at a $35bn valuation in 2021.
The market opportunity means while N8n’s revenue multiple is high, it’s not unreasonable due to the market opportunity, says one growth-stage investor — who hasn’t backed the startup and asked not to be named discussing individual companies.
VCs tell Sifted they expect enterprises to ramp up spending on tools to make workflows more efficient in the coming years, as they bet on the ability of AI to cut costs. The global workflow automation market is predicted to rise from $24bn in 2025 to $37bn in 2030, according to business intelligence platform Mordor Intelligence.
“N8n feels like a leader in the workflow automation space,” says the investor. “It’s probably worth more than $2bn today. If you believe it’s a big market and can sustain growth, you don’t have to look that far ahead for the valuation to look fairly reasonable.”
The startup’s current revenue figures mean “VCs feel comfortable extrapolating that ARR at N8n could get to $100m-150m over the next 12 months,” they add.
The German startup said in March it had more than 230k active users and 3,000 enterprise customers, including Vodafone, Delivery Hero and Microsoft, according to its website.
While some AI application startups — like Swedish vibe coding Lovable — have high costs associated with building directly on top of LLM providers’ models, N8n is in a different camp.
The German company enables the use of LLMs and can connect those models to enterprises internal systems, but it’s the end users that manage and pay for the access.
Riding hype
N8n’s current fundraise became a bidding war that saw it receive more than 10 term sheets as VCs fought to lead the round.
While Accel won out, with a pre-money valuation of $2.3bn, according to Bloomberg, people familiar with the talks tell Sifted Insight Partners sent a term sheet with a $2.76bn valuation attached.
“If there’s a lot of demand for companies, those shares will rise in value,” says Ashish Patel, managing director at investment bank Houlihan Lokey. “AI companies are in demand right now from investors, who see potential for the next wave of massive profit making businesses to be built.”
N8n has been priced as a “premium” asset because of the potential upside if the bet comes off, says the investor who asked not to be named.
They add there are 30-50 companies over the next five plus years that will capture a very large majority of value created in private tech — and N8n has a chance of being among that number.
“There aren’t many global tech companies you could truly point at and say could be one of that group,” they say. “The upside of being right is so much greater than the risk of passing on the deal because the valuation is too high.”
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/n8n-valuation/
