🧑💻 Developer-First #150 - CAC40 CIOs
Seven surprising facts about the CIOs shaping France’s biggest companies
Hello friend,
When we think about the CAC40, we usually see it as a mirror of the French economy. But behind the scenes, the CIOs (Chief Information Officers) are quietly shaping these giants' digital future.
With Avolta’s data team, I dug into the backgrounds of the 40 CIOs leading the CAC40 companies today. Here’s what we discovered 👇
💰 Massive economic influence
Together, CAC40 CIOs oversee an estimated €50 billion in IT budgets* — a staggering figure highlighting technology's critical role in large enterprises.
🏛️ Still climbing the corporate ladder
Less than half of CAC40 CIOs sit on their company’s executive committee (COMEX). While this is improving, it’s still surprisingly low for such key figures.
🔄 A new generation of CIOs
More than 77% of CAC40 CIOs have been appointed since 2020. The wave of renewal is very recent — signalling a clear shift towards modernisation and digital acceleration.
👩💼 Gender diversity is lagging
Only 7 out of 40 CIOs are women. Kudos to companies like Accor, Airbus, Dassault Systèmes, ENGIE, Pernod Ricard, Saint-Gobain, and Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield for leading the way.
🧑🎓 Engineering backgrounds aren’t as common as you’d expect
Only about 40% have an engineering degree from top schools like Télécom Paris, École Polytechnique, CentraleSupélec, or INSA Lyon.
💻 Even fewer studied computer science
Just 1 out of 3 CIOs holds a formal computer science degree — with only two from EPITA, one of France’s top tech schools (and my alma mater 🧑🎓).
🎓 And PhDs are rare
Only three CIOs hold a PhD — much lower than in the U.S., where it’s more common to see PhDs leading major tech and IT organisations.
In short, CIOs are gaining more influence within CAC40 leadership teams, but there’s still progress to be made — in representation, technical depth, and strategic decision-making power.
*Note: estimate based on IT budgets representing ~3% of the CAC40’s combined €1.6 trillion revenue in 2024.
👉 Want access to the raw dataset? Just reply to this email.
Now, let's dive into last week's developer-first transactions.
💰 Market Summary - Week of April 21st, 2025
9 companies raised $747 million across 5 product categories in 2 countries.
Europe-based companies attracted 0% of the total funding vs 26.8% for Asia-based companies and 73.2% for North America-based companies.
Security is the category that attracted the highest funding.
4 companies provide or contribute to an open-source product.
2 companies were acquired this week.
🧩 Funding by Product Category
🌎 Funding by Region
🏢 Funding By Company
Chainguard, from Kirkland 🇺🇸, raised $356 million in Series D+ funding led by Kleiner Perkins. Chainguard is revolutionising how unstructured data is utilised and preserved, providing secure container images with minimal CVEs. (more)
Supabase, from Singapore 🇸🇬, raised $200 million in Series D+ funding led by Accel. Supabase is an open source alternative to Firebase, offering a suite of tools including databases, authentication, and real-time subscriptions to build scalable applications. (more)
Endor Labs, from Palo Alto 🇺🇸, raised $93 million in Series B funding led by DFJ Growth. Endor Labs delivers an advanced AppSec platform built for the AI era, enhancing security across both human and AI-generated code. (more)
Ocient, from Chicago 🇺🇸, raised an additional $42.1 million as part of their Series B funding. Ocient provides a platform for handling hyperscale datasets efficiently, enabling significant insights and innovations for its users. (more)
Reducto, from San Francisco 🇺🇸, raised $24.5 million in Series A funding led by Benchmark. Reducto specialises in converting unstructured documents into structured data, using advanced OCR and AI models for accuracy and efficiency. (more)
Deep Infra, from Palo Alto 🇺🇸, raised $18 million in Series A funding led by Felicis Ventures and Georges Harik. Deep Infra provides an easy-to-use platform for running ML infrastructure, allowing deployment of top AI models via a simple API. (more)
Adaptive, from San Francisco 🇺🇸, raised $7 million in Seed funding led by Pebblebed. Adaptive offers a no-code platform that enables applications to interconnect and evolve through user interactions. (more)
Recce, from San Francisco 🇺🇸, raised $4 million in Pre-Seed funding led by Heavybit. Recce enhances data team operations by providing tools for detailed, context-rich reviews of data changes, ensuring quality and consistency. (more)
Buster, from San Francisco 🇺🇸, raised $2.4 million in Seed funding led by Y Combinator. Buster reimagines data analytics, enabling business users to interact with data through natural language and build dashboards effortlessly. (more)
🤝 Mergers & Acquisitions
Metaplane, based in Boston 🇺🇸, was acquired by Datadog. Metaplane offers a leading data observability platform that features automatic anomaly detection, column-level lineage, and proactive incident prevention tools, simplifying the setup process for users. (more)
Coana, from Aarhus 🇩🇰, was acquired by Socket. Coana specialises in scanning open source dependencies for security vulnerabilities, significantly reducing false positives and enhancing software security. (more)
⭐️ Trending GitHub Repositories
microsoft / markitdown (✩ 4,830 stars this week) - Python tool for converting files and office documents to Markdown.
Anduin2017 / HowToCook (✩ 3,511 stars this week) - Programmer's guide about how to cook at home (Simplified Chinese only).
microsoft / BitNet (✩ 3,419 stars this week) - Official inference framework for 1-bit LLMs.
👍 Trending Developer Tools on ProductHunt
Agent Simulate (👍 541) - Agent Simulate lets you simulate and test LLM agents in a sandbox before shipping. Debug behaviors, iterate faster, and reduce production risks with an interactive testbed built for agent developers. Save time with reproducible, automated runs.
RightNow AI 'V2.0' (👍 466) - Vibe coding for CUDA engineers. Automatically profile, detect bottlenecks, and optimize your CUDA kernels for peak performance.
Cap (👍 415) - Cap is a lightweight, modern open-source CAPTCHA alternative designed using SHA-256 proof-of-work. It's: - ⚡️ 250x smaller than hCaptcha - 🔒️ Private - 🌈 Fully customisable - 🤖 PoW-based - 🌳 Fully FOSS - 💨 Invisible