Julien Chaumond
Co-Founder & CTO, Hugging Face at hugging-face
Reviewed Updated Jul 24, 2026This profile is AI-generated. If you spot an error, please help us fix it by sharing a URL to the correct information.
Background
Julien Chaumond is co-founder and CTO of Hugging Face, the open-source AI platform he founded in New York City in 2016 with Clément Delangue and Thomas Wolf 12. Chaumond leads the technical architecture of the platform, which hosts model repositories, datasets, and the Transformers library that became a standard interface for open-source machine learning 13.
Before Hugging Face, Chaumond co-founded Glose (a social reading app later acquired by Medium) and worked as a software engineer at Stupeflix (acquired by GoPro) 34. He also served earlier as an advisor to the Deputy Minister for Digital Affairs at France’s Ministère de l’Économie et des Finances 3. Chaumond holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Stanford University (2006-2007) and a Diplôme d’Ingénieur in Applied Mathematics from École Polytechnique 34.
Based in Brooklyn, New York, Chaumond is also active as an angel investor, primarily backing AI infrastructure, generative media, and developer tools companies 45.
Stated Thesis
(Self-reported. See Inferred Thesis for actual investment behavior analysis.)
Chaumond has not published a formal angel investing thesis. His public positioning consistently emphasizes open-source AI, technical builders, and generative infrastructure. In a Sifted interview about Hugging Face’s early fundraising, he described Hugging Face’s positioning as “the GitHub of machine learning” 6. He has also publicly characterized structured generation — the technical focus of his portfolio company dottxt — as the future of large language models 7.
Inferred Thesis
Sample size caveat: This analysis is based on 7 independently verified angel investments. Chaumond’s public angel portfolio is thin relative to the ~15-20 investments listed on aggregator sites like Tracxn and CB Insights, which could not be independently verified from primary sources. Percentages below are qualitative rather than quantitative.
Across the seven verified rounds (Polycam, fal.ai, Pimento, dottxt, Sourcetable, pyannoteAI, Ankar, Altrove), a clear pattern emerges:
- Stage: Predominantly seed and Series A. Six of seven verified investments were seed rounds; one (fal.ai) was Series A 8910711121314.
- Sector: Almost exclusively AI infrastructure and AI-native applications. Verified investments cover generative media (fal.ai, Polycam, Pimento), structured LLM output (dottxt), speaker intelligence (pyannoteAI), spreadsheet AI (Sourcetable), IP/legal AI (Ankar), and AI-designed advanced materials (Altrove) 8910711121314.
- Geography: Split between US-based (Polycam, fal.ai, Sourcetable) and France/EU-based (Pimento, dottxt, pyannoteAI, Altrove) companies, with one UK-based investment (Ankar) 8910711121314. Chaumond’s dual anchoring in Brooklyn and the French AI ecosystem is visible in the deal flow.
- Founder profile: Technical founders building infrastructure or generative tools, often with ties to Hugging Face’s ecosystem or the broader Paris AI scene.
- Co-investor patterns: Frequently participates alongside other operator-angels (Chad Hurley, Shaun Maguire, Aravind Srinivas, Guillermo Rauch, Olivier Pomel, Thibaud Elzière, Jean-Charles Samuelian) and top-tier institutional leads (Andreessen Horowitz, Kindred Ventures, Index Ventures, EQT Ventures, Left Lane Capital, Partech, Alven, Crane Venture Partners) 8910711121314.
Portfolio
| Company | Year | Stage | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pimento | 2023 | Seed (€3M, led by Partech & Cygni) | 10 |
| Polycam | 2024 | Series A ($18M, led by Left Lane Capital & Adjacent) | 8 |
| dottxt | 2024 | Seed ($8.7M, led by EQT Ventures) | 7 |
| fal.ai | 2024 | Series A ($14M, led by Kindred Ventures) | 9 |
| Sourcetable | 2025 | Seed ($4.3M, led by Bee Partners) | 11 |
| pyannoteAI | 2025 | Seed (€8.1M, led by Crane Venture Partners & Serena) | 12 |
| Ankar | 2025 | Seed (£3M, led by Index Ventures) | 13 |
| Altrove | 2025 | Seed ($10M, led by Alven) | 14 |
In Their Own Words
On Hugging Face’s positioning, from a Sifted interview:
“We are the GitHub of machine learning.” 6
On raising capital in the US from a French base:
“Raising money in the US remains something that, beyond the money itself, is unavoidable if you want to do something with a global ambition.” 6
On the difference between European and US venture capital:
“French and European VCs are still one step behind in terms of the risks they are taking. Whereas in the US, investors were saying: ‘This looks completely half-baked but fun, here’s a ticket.’” 6
On US investor risk tolerance:
“They are much more relaxed when it comes to what they perceive as risky.” 6
On the changing startup landscape in France:
“A decade ago, we were a small minority that came out of university and launched startups [in France]. Now, it’s almost the default option if you’re not sure what to do.” 6
What Founders Say
No independently sourced founder testimonials found. Chaumond’s angel investing is recent enough (most verified rounds since 2023) and low-profile enough that portfolio founders have not publicly commented on the working relationship in sources this research could verify.
Sources
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Hugging Face — Wikipedia, accessed July 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugging_Face↩↩
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Data on file: existing Seedlist profile for Clément Delangue, referencing the same founding history.
data/investors/clem-delangue.md. ↩ -
“Who is Julien Chaumond? Co-founder and CTO of Hugging Face” — PromptLayer glossary, accessed July 2026. https://www.promptlayer.com/glossary/julien-chaumond/↩↩↩↩
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Julien Chaumond — LinkedIn profile, accessed July 2026. https://www.linkedin.com/in/julienchaumond/↩↩↩
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“Julien Chaumond — 2025 Portfolio & Founded Companies” — Tracxn, accessed July 2026. https://tracxn.com/d/people/julien-chaumond/__7nN9_XtM7m_5qmeJ2msKOtH3qk26uzYZeqndu3LL1Ak↩
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“Fundraising in the US, Alanis Morissette covers and an emerging founders factory: How Hugging Face got French tech talking” — Sifted, accessed July 2026. https://sifted.eu/articles/hugging-face-interview-julien-chaumond↩↩↩↩↩↩
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“With $11.9 million in funding, Dottxt tells AI models how to answer” — TechCrunch, October 17, 2024. https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/17/with-11-9-million-in-funding-dottxt-tells-ai-models-how-to-answer/↩↩↩↩↩↩
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“Polycam raises $18M to democratize 3D creation” — PR Newswire, February 7, 2024. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/polycam-raises-18m-to-democratize-3d-creation-302055587.html↩↩↩↩↩
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“Generative media needs speed. fal has raised $23M to accelerate.” — fal.ai blog, September 18, 2024. https://blog.fal.ai/generative-media-needs-speed-fal-has-raised-23m-to-accelerate/↩↩↩↩↩
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“Pimento Raises €3 Million in Seed Round” — The SaaS News, accessed July 2026. https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/pimento-raises-3-million-in-seed-round↩↩↩↩↩
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“Sourcetable Raises $4.3M in Seed Round” — The SaaS News, accessed July 2026. https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/sourcetable-raises-4-3m-in-seed-round↩↩↩↩↩
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“pyannoteAI raises €8 million to build the first Language-Agnostic Speaker Intelligence Platform” — EU-Startups, April 11, 2025. https://www.eu-startups.com/2025/04/pyannoteai-raises-e8-million-to-build-the-first-language-agnostic-speaker-intelligence-platform/↩↩↩↩↩
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“Ankar raises £3M Seed to protect intellectual property with AI-powered platform” — Tech.eu, May 28, 2025. https://tech.eu/2025/05/28/ankar-raises-3m-seed-to-protect-intellectual-property-with-ai-powered-platform/↩↩↩↩↩
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“We’ve raised $10 million to turn AI-predicted materials into industrial reality” — Altrove, October 31, 2025. https://www.altrove.ai/resources/seed-announcement↩↩↩↩↩