Former Googlers seek to captivate kids with an AI-powered learning app

Big tech companies and upcoming startups want to use generative AI to build software and devices for kids. Many of these experiences are limited to text or voice messages, and children may not find that captivating. Three former Google employees want to overcome this obstacle with their interactive AI-powered app, Sparkli.

Sparkli was founded last year by Lax Poojary, Lucie Marchand and Myn Kang. As parents, Pujari and Kang were unable to satisfy their children’s curiosity or provide engaging answers to their questions.

“Kids, by definition, are very curious, and my son would ask me questions about how cars work or how rain falls. My approach was to use ChatGPT or Gemini to explain these concepts to a six-year-old, but that’s still a wall of text. What kids want is an interactive experience. This was our core process behind founding Sparkli,” Pujari told TechCrunch over a phone call.

Before launching Sparkli, Pujari and Kang co-founded a tour aggregator called Touring Bird and a video-focused social commerce app, Shoploop, at Google’s Area 120, the company’s internal startup incubator. Pujari later moved on to work at Google and YouTube in the shopping space. Marchand, CTO at Sparkli, was a co-founder of Shoploop and later worked at Google.

“When a child asked what Mars looked like 50 years ago, we might have shown them a picture,” Pujari said. “Ten years ago, we could have shown them a video. With Sparkly, we want kids to interact and experience what Mars looks like.”

The startup said that education systems often lag behind in teaching modern concepts. Sparkly wants to teach kids topics like design skills, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship by creating an AI-powered educational “expedition.”

The app allows users to explore some pre-defined topics in different categories or ask their own questions to create a learning path. The app also highlights a new topic every day to allow children to learn something new. Children can either listen to the generated audio or read the text. Classes under one topic include a mix of audio, video, pictures, quizzes and games. The app also creates choice-as-you-use adventures that don’t create pressure to get questions right or wrong.

Poojary mentioned that the startup uses generative AI to quickly create all of its media assets. The company can create a learning experience within two minutes of a user asking a question, and it is trying to reduce that time further.

The startup said that while AI assistants can help children learn certain subjects, their focus is not on education. She said that to make her product effective, her first two hires were a PhD in Educational Sciences and Artificial Intelligence and a teacher. This was a conscious decision to ensure that its content best served children, taking into account pedagogical principles.

Safety is one of the main concerns around children’s use of artificial intelligence. Companies like OpenAI and Character.ai are facing lawsuits from parents who claim these tools have encouraged their children to hurt themselves. Sparkley said that while some topics like sexual content are strictly prohibited on the app, when a child asks about topics like self-harm, the app tries to teach them emotional intelligence and encourages them to talk to their parents.

The company is piloting its app with an institute that has a network of schools with over 100,000 students. Currently, its target audience is children ages 5 to 12, and it tested its product in more than 20 schools last year.

Sparkli has also built a school module that allows teachers to track progress and assign homework to kids. The company said it was inspired by Duolingo to make the app engaging enough so that kids can learn the concepts and also feel like coming back to the app frequently. The app has lines and rewards for children for completing lessons regularly. It also gives children task cards, based on the initial avatar they set up, to learn different topics.

“We have seen a very positive response from our pilot programs in schools. Teachers often use Sparkly to create expeditions that children can explore at the beginning of class and lead them into a more discussion-based format. Some teachers have also used it to create expeditions [homework] “After they explain a topic to allow the children to explore further and get a gauge of their understanding,” Pujari said.

While the startup wants to work primarily with schools globally over 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 seed funding led by Swiss venture firm Founderful. Sparkli is Founderful’s first pure education technology investment. The company’s co-founder, Lucas Feder, said the team’s technical skills and market opportunity led him to invest in the startup.

“As a father of two kids in school now, I see them learning interesting things, but they’re not learning topics like financial literacy or technology innovation,” Feder said. “I thought from a product standpoint Sparkly takes them away from video games and lets them learn things in an immersive way.”

This article was first published on January 22, 2026.