SAP backs Berlin's n8n at $5.2bn, doubling its value in seven months

SAP has taken a strategic stake in n8n, the Berlin-based workflow automation startup, in a deal that values the company at $5.2bn. That is more than double the $2.5bn valuation n8n reached just seven months earlier, when it closed a $180m round in October 2025.

The investment, announced at SAP's Sapphire conference in Orlando, comes with a multi-year commercial agreement. Under it, SAP will embed n8n's automation platform directly inside Joule Studio, the agent-building environment within its SAP Business AI Platform.

What SAP gets from the deal

n8n's product lets technical teams wire together AI models, databases and business software on a visual canvas, with more than 1,000 pre-built integrations. SAP customers will be able to use that canvas inside Joule Studio to design and run their own AI agents, rather than relying solely on SAP's native tooling.

For SAP, the world's largest European software company by market value, the move is a way to add a flexible, developer-friendly automation layer without building one in-house. SAP chief executive Christian Klein said agentic AI needs to be grounded in solid process knowledge and strict governance, and framed the n8n tie-up as a way to help customers design and scale AI agents across their core business processes.

For n8n, the arrangement hands it distribution inside a customer base that dwarfs its own. SAP serves hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide, many of them exactly the large, regulated enterprises that n8n has been trying to reach on its own sales effort. n8n says it already has more than 1,400 enterprise customers and 1.7 million monthly active developers building on the platform.

From open-source project to enterprise infrastructure

n8n was founded in Berlin in 2019 by Jan Oberhauser and built its early following through a fair-code licensing model that kept the core product free to self-host while charging for cloud and enterprise features. That approach helped it build a large community of independent developers before it ever closed a major enterprise logo.

The SAP deal marks a shift in how the company positions itself: less a developer tool, more a piece of enterprise AI infrastructure sitting underneath one of the continent's biggest software vendors.

"Securing SAP as a strategic investor marks a pivotal moment," Oberhauser said. "Its decision to back n8n and to embed us inside Joule Studio reflects genuine confidence in our platform and our vision."

n8n has moved quickly through funding rounds since. It raised a $1.5m seed round from Sequoia Capital in 2020, a $12m Series A led by Felicis Ventures in 2021, a €60m Series B led by Highland Europe in March 2025, and the $180m round backed by Accel, NVIDIA Ventures, Meritech and Redpoint Ventures last October. Across those rounds it has taken in roughly $240m, and now employs around 1,200 people.

The risk in leaning on one partner

Tying a chunk of future growth to a single enterprise partner carries its own exposure. n8n built its base on an open developer community rather than enterprise sales, and a deeper alignment with SAP's product roadmap could test how that community views the company as it grows more commercial.

There is also the matter of living up to a valuation that has doubled twice in under a year. SAP's cheque, reported at a far smaller sum than the headline valuation implies, buys influence and access rather than a majority stake, leaving n8n to prove out revenue growth on its own.

n8n has also pitched the deal around data governance, arguing its platform lets regulated industries keep workflows auditable and data within set jurisdictions, an argument aimed squarely at European customers wary of sending sensitive processes through US-based AI tools. SAP and n8n expect the integration inside Joule Studio to reach customers later this year, giving an early read on whether enterprise buyers actually adopt it at scale rather than treating it as another feature on a long list.