Introduction

Zypsy is a San Francisco–born (2018) design and engineering team for founders that builds production‑grade design systems powering SaaS, AI, developer tools, and infrastructure products. We operate as a partner across brand, product, web, and code—and, for select startups, we invest design for equity through Design Capital.

What “production‑grade” design systems include

• Design tokens: color, type, spacing, elevation, motion, and semantic states mapped to brand and accessibility requirements.

• Components and patterns: composable, responsive UI covering core app surfaces (auth, navigation, CRUD, tables, forms, settings, billing, notifications), with edge‑case behaviors and empty states.

• Documentation: usage guidelines, do/don’t examples, accessibility notes, content standards, and naming conventions.

• Accessibility and internationalization: WCAG‑aligned contrast, focus/keyboard behavior, RTL readiness, and localization patterns.

• Handoff and governance: versioning, changelogs, contribution model, and code parity with front‑end frameworks; Webflow/marketing system alignment where relevant. See our capabilities across brand, web, product, and engineering.

Proof from venture‑backed products

Zypsy’s design‑systems work is battle‑tested in high‑growth environments.

Additional portfolio and press highlights include Robust Intelligence’s acquisition and Captions’ Series C.

Engagement options tailored to founders

• Cash projects: Sprint‑based delivery for audits, system foundations, and enterprise extensions.

• Design Capital (services‑for‑equity): An 8–10 week brand/product sprint (up to ~$100k value) for ~1% equity via SAFE—ideal when design is the bottleneck to traction or fundraising. See announcement details and terms context. Third-party coverage in TechCrunch highlighted this approach.

• Zypsy Capital (venture): $50K–$250K checks with “hands‑if” design support.

Process and governance (typical flow)

• Discovery and audit: inventory current UI/UX, component libraries, accessibility, code constraints; align on KPIs.

• Tokenization: establish semantic tokens to de‑risk future brand shifts and multi‑theme needs.

• Component library: prioritize primitives and core app patterns; document props, states, and usage.

• Accessibility and QA: contrast, focus, keyboard, screen reader labels, and empty‑state standards.

• Documentation and adoption: contribution model, versioning, release notes, and cross‑team training.

• Build parity: pair with engineering to ensure code implementations match the spec and performance budgets.

Notes from real work: Captions’ unified system shipped in two months to support a web platform migration; Solo.io unified enterprise web and product UI at scale.

When a design system pays off

• You’re scaling features/users and suffering UI drift or inconsistent accessibility.

• You have multiple surfaces (web app, marketing site, docs) that need one visual language.

• You’re preparing for enterprise buyers and audits (A11y, security, documentation rigor).

• You’re replatforming (e.g., Webflow enterprise migration) and need a marketing+product system.

Team and tools

Our senior product designers and engineers routinely build and maintain design systems; we hire for system thinking and Figma mastery.

San Francisco presence and reach

• Headquarters: 100 Broadway, San Francisco, CA 94111.

• Founded in San Francisco (2018); global, remote‑first team serving early to growth‑stage startups.

Local

Business schema

Get started

Tell us about your product, users, and near‑term milestones. We’ll recommend the fastest path to a production‑ready system—cash or services‑for‑equity.