Big tech companies and upcoming startups want to use generative AI to build software and hardware for children. Many of these experiences are limited to text or sound, and children may not be able to engage with them. Three former Google employees want to overcome these obstacles with their generative AI-powered interactive app, Sparkli.
Sparkli was founded last year by Lax Poojary, Lucie Marchand, and Myn Kang. As parents, Poojary and Kang are unable to satisfy their children’s curiosity or provide satisfying answers to their questions.
“Children, by definition, are very curious, and my child will ask about the way of the car or the rain. My approach is to use ChatGPT or Gemini to explain the concept to a six-year-old child, but it is still a wall of text. What children want is an interactive experience. This is our core process behind the founding of Sparkli,” Poojary told TechCrunch by phone.
Before launching Sparkli, Poojary and Kang founded a travel aggregator called Sleeping Bird and video-focused social commerce apps, Run the storein Google’s Area 120, the company’s internal startup incubator. Poojary later worked at Google and YouTube in shopping. Marchand, who is Sparkli’s CTO, also co-founded Shoploop and later worked at Google.
“When a child asks what Mars looked like fifty years ago, we might as well have shown them a picture,” Poojary said. “Ten years ago, we might have shown the video. With Sparkli, we want kids to be able to interact and experience what Mars is like.”
The startup says the education system often lags behind when it comes to teaching modern concepts. Sparkli wants to teach kids about topics like skill design, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship by creating AI-powered learning “expeditions.”
The app allows users to explore a number of pre-defined topics in different categories or ask questions on their own to create a learning path. The app also highlights new topics every day so kids learn something new. Children can listen to the sounds they make or read the text. Chapters on one topic include a mix of audio, video, images, quizzes, and games. The app also creates a choose-as-you-go adventure that doesn’t put pressure on getting questions right or wrong.
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Poojary stated that the startup uses generative AI to create all media assets on the fly. Companies can create a learning experience within two minutes of a user asking a question, and try to reduce this time.
The startup claims that while AI assistants can help children learn specific topics, their focus is not on education. He said that to make the product effective, the first two employees are those with PhDs in educational science and AI, and teachers. This is a conscious decision to ensure the content is better for children, keeping in mind the principles of pedagogy.
One of the main concerns in children using AI is safety. Companies like OpenAI and Character.ai are facing lawsuits from parents who say their tools encourage their children to harm themselves. Sparkli said that while certain topics like sexual content are strictly prohibited on the app, when kids ask about topics like self-harm, the app tries to teach them about emotional intelligence and encourages them to talk to their parents.
The company is piloting the app with an institute that has a network of schools with more than 100,000 students. Currently, its target audience is children aged 5-12, and it has tested its products in more than 20 schools in the past year.
Sparkli has also built a teacher module that allows teachers to track progress and assign homework to children. The company says it was inspired by Duolingo to make the app fun enough that kids can learn the concepts and also enjoy coming back to the app. The app has bars and rewards for kids for regularly completing lessons. It also provides kids with quest cards, based on pre-set avatars, to learn various topics.
“We have seen a very positive response from our school pilot. Teachers often use Sparkli to create expeditions that children can explore at the beginning of class and lead to a more discussion-based format. Some teachers also use it to create (homework) after they explain the topic so that the children explore further and get a measure of understanding,” said Poojary.
While the startup wants to work with schools around the world in the next few months, it wants to open up consumer access and allow parents to download the app by mid-2026.
The company has raised $5 million in pre-seed funding led by Swiss venture firm Founderful. Sparkli is Founderful’s first pure edtech investment. The company’s founding partner, Lukas Wender, said the team’s technical skills and market opportunities led him to invest in the startup.
“As the father of two children who are in school today, I see them learning interesting things, but they don’t learn topics like financial literacy or innovation in technology. I thought from the point of view of the product, Sparkli gets people away from video games and allows people to learn things in an immersive way,” Wender said.