TestParty Raises $4M to Tackle Digital Exclusion

Business News

Published by Stephen Oluwadara at June 25, 2024

TestParty

Over 96% of the top million websites fail compliance testing for the Americans With Disabilities Act. This means people who require screen readers or other assistive devices to navigate the web can’t fully use and experience most of the Internet.

Realizing this problem, Harvard-educated Bervell teamed up with Jason Tan in March 2023 to solve this problem. “Jason and I realized that this problem often starts with engineers who don’t know how to write accessible code or create accessible products,” Bervell said on his LinkedIn account.

Bervell is a Harvard-educated entrepreneur who used to work as a portfolio manager at Microsoft’s Venture Fund and a software engineer at X (formerly Twitter). He met Tan around 2021 while Tan took a gap year in the Smoky Mountains.

On his part, Tan (TestParty’s Co-Founder and CTO) first came across the idea after working at Twitch, which was sued in 2021 for its lack of digital accessibility. Upon reflecting on the issue, he realized that disability suits like this were common and that the rapid expansion of the internet has caused many to overlook guardrails that would make their technology more inclusive.

He teamed up with Bervell because he believed engineers could be trained with AI to write more accessible website code.

Together, they founded TestParty, a human-first digital accessibility compliance platform powered by AI. TestParty automates testing, remediation, training, and code monitoring to bring websites into compliance with accessibility standards.

How Does TestParty Work

The platform automatically rewrites source code to help businesses avoid violating global digital accessibility regulations like the European Accessibility Act or the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Inclusive technology like this is precisely what advocates talk about when they want to see more innovation with overlooked communities considered. The market for Compliance management software tops well over $30 billion, and finding a way to automate tedious coding tasks is sure to help make creating accessibility easier for companies.

Traditionally, companies hire consultants to audit and fix a codebase manually. However, Bervell and Tan predict that the method will no longer work as more digital products enter the market.

There is also more regulatory pressure on this topic, such as the EU managing digital accessibility complaints starting in 2025 and the U.S. mandating compliance for its local, state, and federal institutions. They believe consultants will soon be unable to keep up with increased demand, which is where TestParty and automation will come into play.

With customers ranging from energy companies to 200-year-old textile manufacturers, TestParty’s software platform offers a wide array of tools designed for the modern software development process.

These include a VSCode IDE extension for auditing and correcting code, just-in-point training for WCAG criteria, continuous integration apps for new code scans, workflow integrations with Jira, Linear, and Azure DevOps, and customized dashboards for comprehensive monitoring.

These offerings ensure digital assets are accessible from the outset, saving companies significant time and money while ensuring compliance. There have traditionally been two ways of getting a company’s digital assets compliant: overlays and accessibility software consultancies. TestParty is a pioneering entrant, creating a third space of “automated digital accessibility testing and remediation.”

“We give existing engineers the skills they need to write ADA-compliant code instead of hiring an accessibility specialist for hundreds of dollars per hour,” Brevell said. “It makes accessibility, a human right, more affordable, leading to creating a more accessible internet.”

TestParty’s $4 Million Seed Round Funding

The seed round was co-led by Harlem Capital and the Urban Innovation Fund and received backing from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Other participants in the round were Bain Capital Ventures (scout fund), K. Ventures (Kennedy family’s disability-focused venture fund), Soma Capital, Gaingels, and The MBA Fund.

Bervell told TechCrunch that the fundraising journey was all about persistence, although it took them just 71 days to close the round. The team was introduced to their lead investor, Harlem Capital, because Bervell used to intern there.

He stayed in contact with the team and participated in alumni events. The firm said this is the first time it has invested in a company founded by someone who used to work for it.

“We believe TestParty will become the ultimate solution to ensure every website is accessible to all, leaving an indelible mark on society,” Henri Pierre-Jacques, managing partner at Harlem Capital, told TechCrunch.

Bervell informed UrbanGeekz.com that the funding will be used to accelerate the growth of the business through hiring.

Photo Credit: TestParty