Stark offers a suite of accessibility tools that plug into popular design apps (Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD) and browsers (Chrome, Edge, Opera, Brave) to help designers check and fix accessibility issues. The Stark Suite uses automated intelligent analysis and provides seamless fixes for both design and code, surfacing issues like font size, color contrast and missing alt text. The company sells four pricing tiers — a free tier plus paid pro, team and enterprise plans — and positions accessibility as part of a company’s core PSA (privacy, security, accessibility). Stark was conceived in 2017 and formed officially in 2020; the founders are CEO Cat Noone and CTO Michael Fouquet, and Benedikt Lehnert serves as chief design officer. The startup operates a distributed team of 18 employees and says it will hire conservatively, letting market demand guide growth. Stark emphasizes diversity in hiring and reports that a majority of its team identify as disabled, which the company says informs product development. Stark is a New York-based startup that provides accessibility tooling for designers and developers to make products more inclusive for people with visual impairments. Its plugins for Figma, Sketch and Adobe XD include a Contrast Checker, Smart Color Suggestions, eight colorblind simulations, a Colorblind Generator and rapid contrast checking on Adobe XD. The company plans developer integrations (next up: a GitHub integration), continued integrations into common design apps, and to build an end-to-end platform addressing other accessibility needs beyond color and beyond software. Stark has grown quickly since launching its early plugins eight months ago, reporting 300,000 users and a 10,000-member community, with customers including Microsoft, Instagram, Dropbox, Volkswagen, Pfizer, Oscar Health and US Bank. Co-founded by CEO Cat Noone and Michael Fouquet and run remotely with Noone now based in Europe, the team describes the ambition as becoming "the Grammarly for accessibility." To fund that expansion it raised a $1.5M pre-seed round and will use proceeds to build integrations, expand pricing and usage tiers, and continue product development.

Total raised

$8M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Aug 2022