The founder of one of Europe’s most lauded startups of 2025 has pondered replacing himself as CEO.
“I am honestly aware that probably at some point post IPO, maybe at some point it would make sense for somebody else,” says Jan Oberhauser, CEO and the sole founder of Berlin-based AI workflow automation startup n8n (pronounced “n eight n”).
A statement which prompts the question where and when n8n would IPO? Ideally, Germany, but no immediate plans, says the 42-year-old father of two.
A future IPO, his own future, n8n’s future, Delaware flip, turning down Y Combinator, typical working week, San Francisco’s talent density, and getting his kicks through indoor skydiving are some of the topics Oberhauser bounces through in a 30-minute video interview recorded a day before Slush.
N8n bidding war
N8n garnered the gaze of the mainstream tech press this summer, after it became the centre of an investor bidding war, with VCs offering rocketing valuations.
The long-running Series C saga was finally confirmed in October, when n8n announced it had raised $180m, valuing it at $2.5bn, led by Accel, with Matt Miller’s Evantic, Nvidia’s VC arm, Visionaries Club and Sequoia also investing.
N8n has raised $240m in total since it was founded in 2019, having raised $60m in March this year.
What is n8n?
N8n calls itself an “orchestration platform for AI-powered applications”.
N8n allows developers and enterprises to connect hundreds of different apps and services and automate business tasks. Think of n8n as the glue between all these apps and services.
Oberhauser, whose background is in visual effects, steadily built n8n for several years, then as AI started to get frothy, spawned by ChatGPT, the CEO realised the burgeoning tech could be the death knell of his startup.
Or as Oberhauser told Sequoia: “We knew it was probably going to mean one of two things, either it was going to be a huge opportunity or the demise of our company.”
A harbinger was Oberhauser clocking US startup Pinecone landing a chunky £100m Series B round, after pivoting from being a vector database startup to a database for AI.
In 2022, n8n followed suit and made its AI play, linking workflows to LLMs and allowing users to “intuitively” build AI-powered applications (as opposed to hiring expensive developers). Revenues have been ripping over the past 12 months, says Obserhauser.
Competitors to n8n include startups and scaleups, including the likes of UiPath and OpenAI with its AgentKit offering.
N8n’s customers
Like other developer-centred platforms, n8n has a flourishing developer and builder community (around 700,000, some of whom now work at n8n) supporting it, helping build integrations, develop content and ‘how to’ guides, which n8n has heavily invested in.
Complementing these free users are hundreds of paying enterprise customers, including the likes of Vodafone, Microsoft and Mistral, as well as two ministries of defence using it for cybersecurity purposes.
Given that n8n is a horizontal platform, enterprises are using it for varied reasons, be it sales, marketing and IT operations.
Juggling its free and paying customers is a tightrope act, says Oberhauser, as leaning too far into paying customers at the expense of free customers reduces n8n’s chances of owning the space.
N8n is an open source platform with restrictions, which means its code is accessible, but there are restrictions on its commercial use, differentiating it from traditional open-source licences that allow free use.
Sovereignty
Digital sovereignty has become an increasingly hot-button issue, as European governments try and define their place in the AI ecosystem.
Within n8n, Oberhauser, who launched his first startup at 17, says European enterprises are open to using LLMs from around the world but have concerns about data sovereignty.
He says: “We see people caring a lot about where the data is, and where it is hosted.
“For example, people are very excited about something like an LLM with Deutsche Telekom, because they are looking for these European solutions and Mistral fits in there very well.
“But many organisations are open to still use other models as long as they can self-host them, run them on their own infrastructure or host it on a provider within Europe.”
Evolving CEO role
Oberhauser, whose hobbies include indoor skydiving, is not a microphone-ready CEO, à la Anton Osika or Sebastian Siemiatkowski.
He says: “I am a developer, I am an introvert, so it’s like any kind of public appearance is definitely not a thing I would love by default doing. I sometimes envy those extrovert founders who get energy from these events.”
That said, his Slush-speaking week is a jam-packed few days involving a roundtable with a German politician, interviewing candidates for n8n roles, a team huddle, and a Friday “study block” with n8n’s VP of product where they chew over AI developments.
His workload has changed “100 per cent” since the early n8n days, but he doesn’t pine for a co-founder, saying it hired well early on.
He has, however, thought about bringing in a new CEO, replacing himself..
“At the moment, I feel I am the right person,” he says.
“But I am honestly aware that, probably at some point post IPO, maybe at some point it would make sense for somebody else. It would not be driven by investors, because they couldn’t even push me out even if they wanted to.”
Fan of Europe
N8n is a Berlin-headquartered, Germany-incorporated startup, which is important to Oberhauser.
He is a Europhile and reflects ruefully talking to an unnamed German founder, whose startup favours a US IPO.
He says: “This is quite sad, even though the company grew large in Europe and has most of the team in Europe. It is definitely something that has to change.
“I definitely want to have a European listing, if possible a German listing.
“We are not in a rush to IPO anytime soon.”
This marks a contrast with another high-profile German startup, DeepL, which is considering a US IPO, it has been reported.
Around a year ago, one of n8n's US investors wanted it to “flip” to being US incorporated, a suggestion Oberhauser politely declined.
And in n8n’s early days, its investors were “not the biggest fans of having a German entity but I pushed back very hard", he says.
Amid much chatter about where another hot European startup, Lovable, is incorporated, Oberhauser rubbishes talk that a startup’s country of incorporation doesn’t matter, saying it impacts the perception of a startup and potentially its IPO destination.
Oberhauser even turned down Y Combinator, as the US accelerator wanted him to be Delaware-registered.
He says: “I could have got into YC but I didn’t take it because one of the things they needed is that I become Delaware reigstered and I didn't want to do that. And it is much more important for me to start as a German GmbH and stay as GmbH in the long term.”
US investors and US expansion
N8n has European investors including Deutsche Telekom’s T Capital and Visionaries Club and US investors, like Sequoia, on its cap table.
European investors were “very slow” and “not that aggressive” in wanting to invest in n8n in its early days, he says, adding that its German investors only came on board via word-of-mouth through its US investors.
The US, he says, is now n8n’s fastest growing market, helped by US enterprises more willing to work with startups compared to European enterprises.
This year, headcount has grown from 60 to 185, with n8n now having offices in Berlin, London and New York.
The future
Oberhauser did not disclose n8n’s revenues, but he stressed they were now above the $40m ARR (annual recurring revenue) reported earlier this year.
Next year, n8n will look to grow in Europe and the US, where Oberhauser is visiting in January, on a trip to Silicon Valley, which, he says, is still home to the world's top AI talent.
Given n8n is a horizontal, not a vertical, play, with a broad platform offering, it should be well placed in the AI race, experts say.
One thing is clear: N8n is not short of ambition and wants to become the Excel of AI.
He says: “What we want to become is the default tool out there for how people make these AI-powered applications.”
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