Nikolaus Federmann (Spanish: Nicolás Féderman, pronounced [nikoˈlas ðe 'feðeɾman]) (c. 1505, Ulm – February 1542, Valladolid) was a German adventurer and conquistador in what is modern-day Venezuela and Colombia.

He is a significant figure in the history of Klein-Venedig (1528–1546), the concession of Venezuela Province that Charles I of Spain granted to the Welser banking family and the foundation of Santafe de Bogotá.

Ein schöne kurtzweilige Historia Niclaus Federmanns des Jüngern von Ulm erster raise (published in 1557).

However, Federmann did not secure native divers to search for pearls, and his mission to found a city he wanted to call "Ulma", after his place of birth Ulm, failed.

Jiménez de Quesada had failed to fulfill the official requirements of the Spanish Crown concerning the founding of a settlement when he attempted to establish a first Bogotá on 6 August 1538.

Gonzalo assigned his brother Hernán Pérez de Quesada as interim governor of the New Kingdom of Granada and chose the first mayor and council for the capital.

Without having found El Dorado, ten years after his arrival in the New World, in mid May 1539, Federmann returned to the Caribbean coast, to sail to Spain from Cartagena.