Since 2015, when the Denmark-based platform Be My Eyes launched, more than 2 million volunteers have signed up to assist some 120,000 blind and low-vision users, according to the company.
That rapid expansion has forced the startup, which has until now been subsisting on grants and private investment, to figure out how to pay for the infrastructure to maintain the increasing volume of video-call traffic.
CEO Christian Erfurt said he never wanted to resort to the kind of advertising based on user data that has become standard in the tech world.