Since 2015, we've not only grown, but we've also built a model for visionary founders who believe in values, top quality, and velocity.
The office was more of a tiny room with a few windows and barely four desks with their computers. A guitar, a black chalk paint wall as a blackboard, and a basketball hoop machine—poor thing, it didn’t survive—rolled around the place. Héctor Giner and Carlos Tabasco, co-founders of Z1, were experiencing fatherhood and entrepreneurship for the first time, all at once. Like in a Dickens novel, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
The two engineers had met while working at the same company. When that organization went bankrupt and kicked them to the curb, they decided to dive in headfirst and founded Commite, the seed of what is now Z1. What did they know about entrepreneurship? Not much. But they were certain about one thing: they wanted to do something radically different from everything they had seen in their professional careers so far.
Was it possible to jump into the international tech scene from a city like Seville? Was it that hard to attract clients and talent from around the world by embracing what was then the emerging culture of remote work? Was it so difficult to design a way of working that adapted to our lives instead of the other way around?
All these questions were on the table, along with one key determination: honesty. It was crystal clear to them that the world of digital products was neglecting its most important component—the users. Z1 would put them at the center of everything, focusing on projects that provided rich, meaningful digital experiences without compromising people’s time or encouraging unhealthy engagement.
We don’t want to sound like grandpas telling war stories because, honestly, 10 years is still childhood. But wow, how much has changed and how much we’ve learned since those early days. This May, with all those ideas turned into reality, Z1 is celebrating our first decade—and we still can’t quite believe everything we’ve experienced along the way.
From that tiny room, we moved to a bigger office, and finally, as our projects and team of digital experts kept growing, we founded Magma—Andalusia’s first space dedicated to ethical design. Today, Magma is Z1 headquarters, an open hub in the heart of Seville, where we share space and ambitions with the venture builder Fusión, helping entrepreneurs from our region with innovative ideas to take off.
We wouldn’t have believed it 10 years ago, but today, we are part of Tiny, standing alongside industry giants like Dribbble and MetaLab—companies we have admired from the start. We also dreamed seeing our work among the winners of awards like Google Best App for Good, the European Design Awards, and the Lovie Awards—and now that dream is a reality.
10 years in numbers and lessons
A decade means over 200 innovative, disruptive, and detail-driven digital experiences—all with one thing in common: the user comes first. All of these products are designed, curated, spoiled, and loved by a team of 70 amazing digital experts.
Ten years means $200 million raised by the startups we’ve helped shape.
Ten years is a synonym for building an extraordinary partnership culture, where we collaborate so closely with our clients that we feel like one single team—because, in fact, we are.
It also means keeping on sailing and sticking together through a global pandemic, navigating crises, and adapting to an industry that never stops evolving—developing survival skills worthy of a wolf and the regenerative powers of a Mexican axolotl.
10 years is feeling proud of earning the Happy at Work certification—proof that at Z1, culture isn’t just a buzzword, it’s a commitment. We’re also fighting to feminize a traditionally male-dominated industry, attracting talented women, developers and designers, and rolling out one of the most forward-thinking Equality Plans in the field.
Along the way, we’ve become experts in industries as diverse as insurance, wellness, web3, logistics, and even golf, to name a few—fields we knew not much when we started!
Hey, we’re in the news!
We must have done something right because the products we've helped crafting have been featured several times in The New York Times, Forbes, and TechCrunch, among many others. And you know what excites us the most? That these publications haven’t just recognized our designs—they’ve also seen the values and ethics we pour into our work.
We like to think that these values are what led us to work alongside top-tier clients such as Andrew Wilkinson, Sam Harris, Gabby Bernstein, Alex Ikonn, Ev Williams, Mike Maser, Aaron Lee, and Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic. Anyways, for us, a client’s fame isn’t what matters most—their vision and ideas are.
As our CEO, Héctor Giner, states: "Design is not just about aesthetics or usability; it’s about responsibility. Every choice we make shapes how people interact with technology, and we have a duty to ensure those interactions are honest, inclusive, and meaningful." We did know that from day one, back in 2015.
