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Code editors are complex and desirable pieces of software, but from a business perspective, they’re difficult to monetize. At the same time, they haven’t kept up with the latest trends in work-from-home collaboration.
At least Nathan Sobo sees this. “Coding is inherently social, but the tools available to talk about code limit the speed and scope of conversation, and this friction is hampering the productivity of our industry,” he told TechCrunch in an email interview. “I believe the only way forward is to move collaboration with the authoring environment as a primary concern, like the transition seen in the past with Figma Design or Google Docs.”
Sobo may not be a household name. But he was a member of the Atom Editor team at GitHub, which worked on the (now defunct) Atom code editor. Now, he’s launching Z, a code editor focused on “multiplayer” experiences, performance, and a streamlined, minimal design.
Sobo teamed up with Antonio Scandura and Max Brunsfeld – Atom contributors – to launch Z. Sobo describes Z as the culmination of a “decade-long” mission to improve the way the software works.
“In 2019, Antonio and I decided that to achieve our vision of building the ultimate code editor and collaboration platform, we needed to start over with a new technical foundation,” said Sobo. “We worked on Zed nights and weekends until the spring of 2021, when we raised the seed and launched Zed Industries, and have been focused on building Zed ever since.”
Sobo asserts that Z’s key differentiators are performance, design, and multiplayer editing. It’s designed to reduce distractions and “fade into the background” so it’s easier to focus on code, says Sobo. And it offers tools designed to make it easy to invite teammates to work together.
With Z, when users join a teammate’s project, they can edit the code as it is on their local machine. Users can call another Z user from the built-in contacts panel or jump into a teammate’s space to follow them around the code. You can also use Z’s built-in screen sharing tool to follow someone offline, or try an app that’s under construction.
Z code editing interface. Image credits: Z
“Ultimately, Z is a software collaboration platform modeled after a world-class code editor. Our goal is to make Z the standard platform for open source software development and the go-to tool for software teams,” added Sobo.
While Z Sobo offers a good experience, I wonder if it can break into the crowded EDE market. According to the Stack Overflow 2022 developer survey, Visual Studio Code remains far and away the most popular IDE, with 74.48% of respondents saying it’s our preferred platform. The second-most popular choice – IntelliJ – was a distant second, receiving 27.97% of the vote.
Z isn’t the only IDE on the block either. For example, there’s Stackblitz, which recently raised $7.9 million to further develop its browser-based IDE.
But investors are buying into the vision, it seems. Z today closed a $10 million Series A round led by Redpoint Ventures with Root Ventures, Matchstick Ventures and V1.VC, as well as angels including Figma’s Dylan Field and GitHub’s Tom Preston Werner. Valuing Z at $40 million, the new cash brings the startup’s total investment to about $12.5 million.
Redpoint’s Patrick Chase was particularly encouraging. He said in an email: “Z’s mission is to allow engineers to get their ideas into code as quickly as possible, or as they say, ‘code at the speed of thought.’ This means a lightning-fast editor, seamless team collaboration, and more to come. No team is better qualified to solve this complex set of problems than the team behind Z – the current version of Z is the culmination of two years of focused development, but almost 16 years of worrying about how to build a better editor.
Z, which has seven employees, plans to monetize primarily through a service-based model. It is currently pre-revenue and is starting in beta to begin with. But during Sobo’s private alpha, the waiting list grew to 12,000 people and there are roughly 800 active users coding on ZCode every week (through the alpha).
“The pandemic has helped accelerate the industry’s transition to far-reaching development. With few opportunities to meet in person, software developers are severely limited by existing collaboration technologies,” said Sobo. “Z was built for a new way of working where conversations around code are richer and interactions are more human and connected. This new way of working accelerates the software development process.”
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