Toronto-based digital accessibility platform, Fable, announced a significant milestone in its mission to promote inclusive design for people with disabilities by raising $25 million in Series B funding. The funding round, equivalent to $33.8 million CAD, was led by Five Elms Capital and will help Fable scale its operations and further its work in accessibility at a time when the rapid rise of AI presents both new opportunities and challenges for inclusivity. Fable's platform is designed to assist global companies in building accessible digital products, ensuring that innovations in AI do not leave people with disabilities behind.

Supporting Inclusive Design for Global Brands

Fable has established itself as a trusted partner for some of the world's largest corporations, including Microsoft, Meta, NBC Universal, and Walmart. Through these collaborations, the company has helped make digital experiences more accessible for millions of users globally.

Jenny Lay-Flurrie, Vice President and Chief Accessibility Officer at Microsoft, emphasized the importance of Fable’s contribution: “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. Fable’s collaboration has been valuable in helping us bridge the disability divide through their community of accessibility testers and training solutions.”

Fable's platform connects accessibility testers—people with disabilities who rely on assistive technology—with teams responsible for building and designing products. This ensures that real user feedback is incorporated into the development process. The new funding will allow Fable to expand its tester community to include individuals with cognitive and hearing disabilities, reflecting the growing need for more comprehensive accessibility testing.

Expanding Accessibility in the Age of AI

As AI technology becomes integral to modern digital infrastructures, Fable is addressing the risks AI poses to accessibility. While AI can help eliminate certain barriers for people with disabilities, its implementation often lacks inclusivity. For instance, AI systems trained on datasets that fail to represent people with disabilities may unknowingly introduce biases that exclude this community from benefiting from technological advances.

Fable’s platform aims to bridge this gap by increasing the representation of people with disabilities in AI training datasets and product development teams. This will help identify and rectify accessibility issues before they manifest in real-world applications. Additionally, Fable is developing best practices for AI accessibility, ensuring that inclusive design principles are embedded in the AI systems of tomorrow.

“AI is penetrating every field. Nearly every company is using, training, or creating new AI-driven tools,” said Alwar Pillai, CEO and co-founder of Fable. “This may be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to establish new norms for accessibility that truly reduce the digital divide. But there is also a very clear danger if we fail to embrace inclusive design in AI—the proliferation of digital exclusion.”

Fable's push for more inclusive AI is supported by its leadership role in the Canadian Technical Committee on Accessible and Equitable Artificial Intelligence Systems, where the company is helping shape national standards for accessibility in AI.

Pioneering Inclusive AI Practices

In addition to expanding its community of accessibility testers, Fable is launching a new Cognitive Accessibility Working Group. This initiative aims to establish best practices for incorporating people with cognitive disabilities into accessibility testing. This is crucial, as approximately 13% of Americans and nearly 20% of people globally live with hearing or cognitive disabilities that impact learning, focus, memory, and communication. By involving these individuals in the testing process, Fable hopes to ensure that the digital products and AI systems being developed are truly inclusive.

Kate Kalcevich, Head of Accessibility Innovation at Fable, highlighted the company’s role in driving inclusive AI standards: “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.”

Scaling to Meet Growing Demand

The investment from Five Elms Capital will allow Fable to accelerate its growth and meet the increasing demand for accessible products. This includes expanding its service offerings, scaling its operations, and reducing barriers for customers. By providing more comprehensive testing solutions and operationalizing accessibility best practices, Fable will continue to help companies create more inclusive digital experiences.

“Product teams have struggled to wrap their heads around how to build and maintain accessible products,” said Austin Gideon, Principal at Five Elms Capital. “Fable understood that right from the start and changed the game with product feedback from actual users with disabilities. They have become the go-to solution for enterprise organizations and have widened their presence in this segment.”

Fable’s latest funding round marks a significant step forward in its mission to make digital accessibility a standard practice, especially in the age of AI. With the backing of major partners like Microsoft and Five Elms Capital, Fable is positioned to lead the charge in ensuring that the future of AI and digital technology is inclusive for all. By expanding its community of testers and continuing its advocacy for accessibility in AI, Fable is making sure that people with disabilities are not left behind in the next wave of technological innovation.