Sam Endacott
Sam is a Partner at Northzone, based in London. He invests from seed to Series B, with a focus on Applied & Physical AI, Software Infrastructure and FinTech. His areas of interest include how AI and software are reshaping traditional industries across financial services, healthcare and manufacturing.
Prior to joining Northzone, Sam spent over eight years at firstminute capital, where he built a track record of identifying high-growth AI and software companies early. He led the seed investment into the AI workflow automation platform n8n as well as Storyblok, Stitch, Protex and Unleash.
Sam started his career in M&A at Goldman Sachs. He holds a First-Class honours degree from the London School of Economics.
What makes you lean in during a founder pitch?
I look for signals of excellence. That can show up in different ways - elite achievement (Math Olympiad winners), bold career moves (joining an unproven startup early), or a long track record of building (on nights and weekends whilst in High School). Those signals matter because they’re proxies for what drives outcomes: ambition, intensity, a bias to action, and the willingness to take calculated risks. At the early stage, you’re betting on the founder - so I lean in when I see evidence they’re wired to run through walls and keep compounding.
What made you invest in n8n?
Six years ago I sent Jan Oberhauser (Founder & CEO) a LinkedIn message asking if he would be open to catching up to understand more about his project n8n which was going viral on GitHub and Hacker News - 4.8k stars in 2 months.
From day one, the product stood out. A source-code available, self-hostable approach gave developers full control and enterprises the ability to run it on their own infrastructure - a powerful combination. That, coupled with an extremely engaged community, created an unfair distribution advantage, and drove bottom-up adoption in businesses globally.
Then AI arrived. n8n was perfectly positioned to embed it deeply into the product, accelerating both PLG and enterprise momentum - scaling from $10m to $100m ARR in 12 months.
It’s a great example of founder–market fit, community-led growth, and timing all converging at once.
n8n has now raised over $200m in funding and its last round valued the company at $5.2bn.
Where would we find you outside of work?
Easy. I love being in the mountains - skiing in the winter, hiking in the summer. The Bernese Oberlands in Switzerland is my second home!
