evinced Raises $17M to Accelerate Web Accessibility Testing

The Evolution of Web Accessibility Tools: Evinced Secures $17 Million

Maintaining web accessibility is an ongoing process, demanding continuous development and refinement of the tools used to achieve it. Evinced, a startup focused on enhancing and accelerating website accessibility checks – both for live sites and those under development – has recently secured $17 million in funding to further its mission.

The Challenges of Identifying Accessibility Issues

Due to the numerous potential sources of accessibility problems, thorough manual code review is often necessary to detect errors. Even development teams prioritizing accessibility from the outset can inadvertently overlook issues, such as scripts failing to integrate correctly with specific variables when menus are activated.

Evinced: A Streamlined Solution

While automated code review exists, it can be slow and resource-intensive. Evinced offers a powerful, yet streamlined, solution that assesses a website in under a second while it's being used. This allows developers to easily share and address identified problems.

Importantly, the tool is designed to function effectively with modern, JavaScript-heavy web applications, which are prevalent today.

Demonstrating Evinced's Capabilities

Consider a contemporary website that appears functional but, for demonstration purposes, contains numerous accessibility flaws. The following video provides a clear illustration of how Evinced’s product functions:

The tool’s responsiveness and speed are particularly noteworthy, providing immediate feedback as developers interact with the site. Traditional auditing methods performed before user interaction may yield inaccurate results.

Leveraging AI for Enhanced Accuracy

The inspector incorporates artificial intelligence through smart rules and computer vision. This ensures that elements appearing as menus or buttons – even if improperly labeled – are correctly identified. These elements possess distinct visual characteristics and functional roles; an interactive element that expands into a selectable list is, fundamentally, a pulldown menu.

Image Credits: Evinced

Features and Integration Options

The platform also provides suggested quick fixes and the ability to export issues for formal review. It’s available as a Chrome extension, or via API integration, allowing seamless incorporation into existing analysis and commit processes.

Company History and Key Partnerships

Evinced was founded in 2018, initiating development shortly thereafter. The following year, the company collaborated with several large enterprises for integration and testing. Capital One emerged as their largest customer and subsequently became an investor.

Capital One's Perspective

According to founder and CEO, Navin Thadani, “We have since deployed our products in production at Capital One (meaning they are used daily – and power their end-to-end accessibility operations – see the Capital One blog) and others. These are paying customers with enterprise licenses.”

Capital One affirms this, stating:

These positive statements come from Capital One, an investor (specifically Capital One Ventures).

Funding and Future Plans

Evinced’s $17 million Series A funding round was co-led by M12, BGV, and Capital One Ventures, with participation from Engineering Capital.

New Free Tiers of Service

To celebrate this funding, Evinced is launching free service tiers. These include an iOS app accessibility debugger, beneficial for app developers unfamiliar with WCAG guidelines and ARIA roles. A free “community edition” site scanner is also available upon approval, alongside a free trial for enterprise users.