The company, which earlier this year announced $28 million in its first round of funding, announced the initiative on Tuesday, noting that the upcoming consumer-focused search engine, called accessFind, will allow people with disabilities to easily determine whether or not a website is accessible. The engine is expected to launch soon, though an official date has yet to be announced. “For too many people, using popular search engines is a frustrating and fruitless experience,” Shir Ekerling, CEO of accessiBe, said in the press release. “With the understanding of the web accessibility gap, the decision to put our resources into accessFind was an easy one. With accessFind, internet users with disabilities finally have a search engine that provides them with results of readily accessible websites, working to bridge the existing digital divide.” The new search engine is just one part of accessiBe’s plans to make the internet more accessible. The company’s public roadmap also details plans to launch free enterprise-grade tools, as well as an accessibility platform specifically for engineering teams. The company says that only 2% of websites are accessible, making it difficult for people with disabilities to find websites that they can fully make use of. With accessFind, the company hopes to make it easier for users to find websites that offer a full range of usability options to meet their needs. In the past, accessiBe has worked to create automated tools that websites can use to increase the accessibility of their content. The company claims that it will offer 120,000 accessible websites at the launch of accessFind and believes that this new initiative will help it reach its goal of making the internet accessible by 2025.
