Three former Google employees decided to change the way children learn. Lax Poojary, Lucie Marchand, and Myn Kang founded the startup Sparkli last year, which offers an interactive educational app powered by artificial intelligence. Their goal is to replace boring text-based answers with an experience that truly engages children.
How Sparkli works
The app allows users to explore predefined topics across various categories or ask their own questions, creating their own learning journey. Each day, the app highlights one new topic so that children can learn something new. Children can either listen to a generated voice or read the text. Chapters within a single topic include a mix of audio, video, images, quizzes, and games. "When a child asked what Mars looked like fifty years ago, we could show them a picture. Ten years ago, we could show them a video. With Sparkli, we want children to interact with and experience what Mars is like," Poojary said.
The startup uses generative AI to create all its media assets on the fly. The company can create an educational experience within two minutes of a user asking a question and is working to reduce that time even further. Sparkli is currently available in early access with support for English only, with more languages in development.
Focus on modern skills
Sparkli says that educational systems often lag behind when it comes to teaching modern concepts. The company wants to teach children about topics such as design skills, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship by creating AI-powered educational "expeditions."
The app also creates "choose your own adventure" experiences that do not put pressure on children to provide right or wrong answers. The company drew inspiration from Duolingo to make the app engaging enough for children to want to return. The app features streaks and rewards for regularly completing lessons. It also provides children with quest cards based on the initial avatar they selected, helping them learn about different topics.
Safety first
One of the key concerns surrounding children's use of AI is safety. Companies such as OpenAI and Character.ai are facing lawsuits from parents who claim that these tools encouraged their children to self-harm. Sparkli said that while certain topics, such as sexual content, are completely prohibited in the app, when a child asks about subjects such as self-harm, the app tries to teach them about emotional intelligence and encourages them to talk to their parents.
The startup noted that while AI assistants can help children learn about certain topics, education is not their primary focus. It said that to make its product effective, its first two employees were a PhD holder in educational science and AI and a teacher. This was a deliberate decision to ensure that its content would better serve children while taking pedagogical principles into account.
Successful pilot programs in schools
The company is piloting its app with an institution that operates a network of schools with more than 100,000 students. Its current target audience is children aged 5-12, and last year it tested its product in more than 20 schools.
Sparkli has also created a module for teachers that allows them to track progress and assign homework to children. "We have seen a very positive response from our school pilot programs. Teachers often use Sparkli to create expeditions that children can explore at the beginning of a lesson, leading them into a more discussion-based format. Some teachers have also used it to create homework assignments after explaining a topic, allowing children to explore it further and giving teachers a measure of their understanding," Poojary said.
While the startup primarily wants to work with schools around the world over the next few months, it plans to open access to consumers and allow parents to download the app by mid-2026.
To date, the company has raised 127 million Czech crowns ($5 million) for its project. Sparkli is Founderful's first pure edtech investment. The firm's founding partner, Lukas Weder, said that the team's technical skills and the market opportunity persuaded him to invest in the startup. "As a father of two children who are now in school, I see that they are learning interesting things, but they are not learning about topics such as financial literacy or technological innovation. From a product perspective, I thought Sparkli could draw them away from video games and let them learn things in an immersive way," Weder said.
From experience to an innovative solution
Poojary and Kang, who are parents themselves, faced a challenge that many parents struggle with—how to satisfy their children's endless curiosity. "Children are inherently very curious, and my son would ask me questions about how cars work or how rain happens. My approach was to use ChatGPT or Gemini to explain these concepts to a six-year-old, but it is still just a wall of text. What children want is an interactive experience," Poojary explained in an interview with TechCrunch.
All three founders have extensive experience at Google. Poojary and Kang co-founded the travel aggregator Touring Bird and the video-focused social commerce app Shoploop within Google Area 120, the company's internal incubator. Poojary later worked in shopping at Google and YouTube. Marchand, who is Sparkli's chief technology officer, was also one of Shoploop's co-founders and subsequently worked at Google.
