n8n: The AI Workflow Powerhouse Turning Devs into 10x Engineers

(4 minutes)

Hi 👋, this is the Today in AI Newsletter: The weekly newsletter bringing you one step closer to building your own startup.

We analyze a cool, industry-shaping AI startup every week, with a full breakdown of what they do, how they make money, how much they’ve raised, and the opportunity ahead.

Let’s get to the good stuff in this email:

• 📈This tool helps you build multi-agent AI workflows with the ability to run different LLMs, and plug directly into your apps

• 🚀 They have over 230,000 active users and 3,000+ enterprise customers, including Delivery Hero, StepStone, and Musixmatch.

• 💰 They’ve just raised a $60M Series B at a $270M valuation, led by Highland Europe with participation from Sequoia, Felicis, and HV Capital.

So what’s the startup and who are the founders behind it? Here’s the story of n8n 📈

n8n (short for “Node Nation”) is an AI-native workflow automation platform founded by Jan Oberhauser in Berlin in 2019.

Think of it as the Zapier for devs - but on steroids.

It gives you the flexibility of code, the speed of no-code, and the power of AI, all in one sleek workflow builder. 💨

💡 Use drag-n-drop to connect your stack, or write custom JavaScript/Python, drop in cURL requests, add npm packages, or even turn workflows into full-on web apps.

n8n has slowly become a secret weapon for technical teams looking to 10x their impact.

The Opportunity 🚀

Workflow automation is a massive market, with giants like Zapier, Make, and Retool. But most tools break when:

• ❌ You need custom code.

• ❌ You want to self-host.

• ❌You want to do anything complex with AI.

n8n fills that gap beautifully:

• ✅ AI-native for building multi-agent systems.

• ✅ Dev-friendly for full code control.

• ✅ Modular, open-source, and host-it-yourself if you need.

As AI continues to eat the world, tools that let devs build faster, smarter, and more securely are going to explode.

n8n is already becoming the platform layer for intelligent workflows - giving technical teams the “powers of a 10x engineer”.

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Backstory 👀

Jan wasn’t always in tech. He started his career in the movie industry, working as a compositor and pipeline TD - building tools to make artists' lives easier.

He worked at Digital Domain on blockbusters like Maleficent, constantly automating manual tasks for VFX teams. But it frustrated him how much human potential was wasted because automation wasn’t accessible to non-developers.

After leaving film, he built a bookmarking startup called Linkfish — where once again, he was stuck writing boilerplate code: APIs, SSL certs, servers… same stuff, over and over.

🧠 That’s when it hit him: Why couldn’t there be a system powerful enough for developers, but simple enough for anyone to automate?

So in 2018, Jan started hacking on a side project that would become n8n. He wanted to build something open-source, node-based like the tools in film, and powerful enough to grow with its users.

The name? n8n = "Node Nation", styled after Kubernetes' k8s. Geeky. Memorable. Perfect.

The Hustle 🤑

Jan coded the first version of n8n in early 2018, while juggling work on his other startup. He launched a prototype on GitHub in June 2019, followed by a Product Hunt drop in October 2019.

The early traction was explosive - developers loved the open-source nature and the blend of low-code with raw power.

But Jan didn’t want to go “open core” (crippling free features to upsell). Instead, he pioneered a new model: Fair-code.

Under Fair-code:

• Anyone can use and modify n8n for free.

• But you can’t sell hosted versions commercially.

This way, users get a great free tool, and Jan gets to build a sustainable business. Win-win. 🏆

He raised a seed round from Sequoia in 2020, and n8n began to scale.

Then came the AI wave with ChatGPT- and Jan didn’t miss it.

In 2022, they pivoted to embrace AI, embedding LLMs into workflows, launching multi-agent systems, and letting users build AI agents with their own tools and data.

Revenue 5x’d, users surged, and n8n was reborn as the AI-native dev platform.

Stats 📊

📈 Fast forward to today, n8n has over 230,000+ active users and 200,000+ community members.

💸 They’ve landed 3,000+ enterprise customers, including Delivery Hero (saved 200+ hours/month), StepStone (cut 2 weeks' work to 2 hours), and Musixmatch (saved 47 days of engineering time)

🏅 N8n is one of the top 150 projects of all time on GitHub with over 126,000 GitHub stars, over 500 integrations and 1700+ templates.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 They currently have a team of ~100 people with their HQ in Berlin, and offices in NYC and London.

💰️ In March 2025, n8n raised a $60M Series B at a $270M valuation led by Highland Europe with participation from Sequoia, Felicis, and HV Capital bringing their total raised to $90M+.

💎 According to Sifted, n8n is currently raising their Series C and VCs are in a bidding war for it with reported valuations up to $2 billion.

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