About us

Laurent Ribardière

Founder and President of 4D

Laurent Ribardière created 4D in 1984 with one goal: to simplify the creation of professional applications by using a fully graphical relational database. Praised by the software industry, his innovation has reshaped the IT industry and inspires generations of developers.

Under his leadership, 4D has remained a pioneering company, renowned for its creative approach to new technologies. 4D has become one of the world’s leading software companies thanks to its presence on 5 continents and subsidiaries in more than 10 countries.

4D’s success is rooted in its ability to meet the challenges head on – thanks to a scalable platform – and to simplify the creation of successful customer experiences on mobile, web, and desktop devices.

Laurent ribardière

4D Worldwide

4D Key Figures

+ 10 k Customers
+ 1 M Users
100 Countries
5 Subsidiaries
7 Languages
170 Employees

Our history

30 years of innovation

The 80's

Company founded
1984
1985
First graphical RDBMS
1987
First 32 RDBMS System
4D Inc. creation in Silicon Valley
1987
4D Deutschland, GmbH
1988

The 90's

1992
First integrated C/S RDBMS
1995
1st Cross-Platform RDBMS
(same code for Mac & Win)
1997
1st Integrated dynamic Web Database system
4D Japan
1999

The 2000's

4D Australasia Pty Ltd
2002
2004
1st IDE to create C/S, Web or SOA apps
without modifying code, same application
2012
Launch of Wakanda Product Line (1st end to end javascript platform)
4D Morocco
2012
2016
Wakanda awarded Cool vendor by Gartner