Fable, a leading platform for digital accessibility powered by people with disabilities, announced it has raised $25m in Series B funding ($33.8m CAD), led by Five Elms Capital. Fable helps some of the largest brands in the world build inclusive digital products with its accessibility testing and training solutions. The funding will be used to further this focus – and to address the heightened need for accessible products in the era of AI.
Empowering Global Brands to Build Inclusive Products
Fable has already established itself as a trusted partner for industry leaders, including Microsoft, Meta, NBC Universal and Walmart. These collaborations have resulted in more accessible digital experiences for millions of users worldwide.
“Creating inclusive products and building AI with accessibility in mind is imperative to Microsoft’s mission of empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more,” said Jenny Lay-Flurrie, Vice President and Chief Accessibility Officer at Microsoft. “Fable’s collaboration has been valuable in helping us bridge the disability divide through their community of accessibility testers and training solutions.”
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As part of its expansion, Fable will extend its tester community beyond those who use assistive technologies to help with vision or mobility limitations to include individuals with hearing and cognitive disabilities. Nearly 20% of people worldwide are affected by hearing loss, and an estimated 13% of Americans can benefit from cognitive accessibility to assist with challenges around learning, focus and attention, memory, communication, reasoning and executive function. In addition to extending its tester community, Fable is leading a new Cognitive Accessibility Working Group that will identify best practices for including people with cognitive disabilities in accessibility testing.
Bridging the AI Accessibility Gap
While AI is helping bridge gaps for people with disabilities, its advancement risks creating less inclusive systems. AI training datasets often exclude data representing people with disabilities, and development teams rarely include them, leading to undetected accessibility issues and bias. From analyzing interviews to routing customer inquiries, AI can discriminate against individuals who exhibit differences, impacting the 1.3 billion people with disabilities and many more who will acquire disabilities over time. Fable’s platform tackles these challenges by expanding its community of testers with disabilities to provide essential feedback, developing AI accessibility best practices, creating inclusive datasets, and offering specialized training for R&D teams on accessible AI.
“AI is penetrating every field. Nearly every company is using, training or creating new AI-driven tools. This may be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to establish new norms for accessibility that truly reduce the digital divide,” said Alwar Pillai, CEO and co-founder of Fable. “But there is also a very clear danger if we fail to embrace inclusive design in AI – the proliferation of digital exclusion. Our customers understand that and are partnering with us more closely than ever to build accessibility and inclusion into the heart of their AI product functions.”
Pioneering Inclusive AI Standards and Practices
Fable’s commitment to accessibility includes influencing national standards for inclusive AI through its leadership in the Canadian Technical Committee on Accessible and Equitable Artificial Intelligence Systems.
“Fable has a critical role to play in the AI ecosystem, from standards development to generating inclusive datasets for large language models. We bring the voices of those impacted into the conversation and into the decision-making process,” said Kate Kalcevich, Head of Accessibility Innovation at Fable.
Expanding Reach and Impact
The investment from Five Elms will allow Fable to meet growing demand for inclusive products by scaling its operations, expanding its tester community, expanding product offerings, reducing barriers for customers and ultimately furthering its work in accessibility best practices.
“Product teams have struggled to wrap their heads around how to build and maintain accessible products. Fable understood that right from the start and changed the game with product feedback from actual users with disabilities,” said Austin Gideon, Principal Five Elms Capital. “They have become the go-to-solution for enterprise organizations and have widened their presence in this segment. We are thrilled to deepen our partnership with the Fable team as they make inclusive design the norm and standard for every product team.”
SOURCE: GlobeNewsWire