Michael Bervell Named a Top 26 NYC Founder | TestParty

TestParty CEO Michael Bervell Named to Global Founder Index Top 26 Founders

Digital accessibility company recognized among 26 founders selected from a pool of more than 250,000 across New York's leading startup communities

NEW YORK — August 20, 2026 — TestParty, the AI-powered digital accessibility platform that remediates WCAG violations at the source-code level, today announced that co-founder and CEO Michael Bervell has been named to the Global Founder Index Top 26 Founders for its Q2 2026 edition.

The Global Founder Index is the largest founder discovery initiative in New York. Each quarter, founders are nominated across 10 partner founder communities representing a pool of more than 250,000 founders, then reviewed and curated down to 26 finalists — 78 across the year. Selection is weighted equally between business excellence and founder story, with a stated mission of surfacing pre-seed, seed, and Series A founders who may not come from traditional networks.

Bervell was featured in the Q2 edition brochure under the headline "He Built the Network He Didn't Have," alongside founders building in categories including AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, consumer health, and workforce technology.

"I've spent my life often being the only one in the room," said Michael Bervell, co-founder and CEO of TestParty. "Now I build software that lets people in."

TestParty was founded on the thesis that digital accessibility represents the next major wave of legal and regulatory innovation. The company's platform identifies and fixes accessibility violations in a customer's source code, an approach that differs from the overlay widgets that have drawn regulatory scrutiny — including the Federal Trade Commission's April 2025 action against accessiBe. Enforcement pressure has continued to build on both sides of the Atlantic, with several thousand ADA-related federal filings annually in the United States and the European Accessibility Act's enforcement provisions taking effect in June 2025.

The recognition follows a period of accelerated growth for the company. TestParty now serves 100+ customers and has surpassed $1M in annual recurring revenue, with a customer base concentrated among Shopify and direct-to-consumer e-commerce brands. The company is backed by a seed round co-led by Harlem Capital and Urban Innovation Fund, and has received a National Science Foundation SBIR Phase I and Phase II award.

Bervell's background spans software engineering at Twitter, product management at Microsoft, venture investing at M12 and Harlem Capital, and accessibility work at Google and the United Nations. He holds a BA in philosophy from Harvard, a master's in communication from the University of Washington, and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where TestParty was incubated. He is the author of Unlocking Unicorns and the youngest person ever elected a director of the Harvard Alumni Association.

The Top 26 Founders of 2026 will be announced live at the Founder Index Gala Award Summit, held at a Manhattan landmark in December 2026. Q3 nominations for the Founder Index remain open through September 30, 2026. The Q2 2026 edition is presented in partnership with 165 Global and Melodi Capital.

Bervell's full Founder Index profile is available at globalfounderindex.com/founder-index/editions/q2-2026/testparty.

About TestParty

TestParty is an AI-powered digital accessibility platform that helps brands find and fix WCAG 2.2 AA violations in their source code. Unlike overlay widgets, which apply surface-level changes at runtime, TestParty remediates issues at the code level to produce durable, auditable accessibility improvements. Founded in 2023 and headquartered in New York City, TestParty serves e-commerce and enterprise customers across the United States and Europe. Learn more at testparty.ai.

About the Global Founder Index

The Global Founder Index is a founder discovery and recognition initiative that identifies exceptional founders building in New York and introduces them to an investor network. Throughout 2026, the Index curates 26 featured founders per quarter across three editions, culminating in the Founder Index Gala Award Summit in December 2026. Learn more at globalfounderindex.com.