Big tech companies and upcoming startups want to use generative AI to build software And hardware Most of these experiences for kids are limited to text or voice and kids may not find it engaging. Three former Googlers want to overcome that barrier with their generative AI-powered interactive app, Sparkly.

Sparkly Founded last year by Lux Pujari, Lucy Marchand and Mine Kang. As parents, Pujari and Kong were unable to satisfy their children’s curiosity or provide interesting answers to their questions.

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

Before launching Sparkly, Pooja and Kong were jointly known as a travel aggregator Touring Bird and a video-centric social commerce app, shoploopAt Google’s Area 120, the company’s internal startup incubator. Pujari later ventured into shopping on Google and YouTube. Marchand, who is Sparkley’s CTO, is also one of the co-founders of ShopLoop and later worked at Google.

“Fifty years ago when a kid asked what Mars looked like, we might have shown them a picture,” Pujari said. “Ten years ago, we might have shown them a video. With Sparkly, we want kids to interact and experience what Mars is like.”

The startup said the education system often lags behind in teaching modern concepts. Sparkli aims to teach kids about skills design, financial literacy and entrepreneurship by creating an AI-powered learning “expedition”.

The app allows users to explore some predefined topics in different categories or ask their own questions to create a learning path. The app highlights a new topic every day to let kids learn something new. Children can either listen to the generated voice or read the text. Chapters under a topic include a mix of audio, video, images, quizzes and games. The app also creates multiple choice adventures that don’t create pressure to get questions right or wrong.

Pujari noted that the startup uses generative AI to create all 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 this time even more.

The startup noted that AI assistants can help children learn some subjects, not focusing on education. It said that to implement its product, the first two hires are PhD holders in Educational Sciences and AI and a teacher. It was a conscious decision to ensure that its content could serve children better, keeping in mind the principles of pedagogy

A major concern around children using AI is safety. Companies like OpenAI and Character.ai are facing lawsuits from parents who allege the tools encouraged their children to self-harm. Sparkley says that while the app completely bans certain topics like sexual content, when a child asks 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 running its app with an institute that has a network of schools with over 100,000 students. Currently, its target audience is children aged 5-12, and it tested its product in more than 20 schools last year.

Sparkly has also developed 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 engaging enough so that kids can learn the concepts and feel like coming back to the app often. The app also features streaks and rewards for kids for regularly completing lessons. It also gives kids quest cards based on the initial avatar they set up to learn different things.

“We’ve seen very positive feedback from our school pilots. Teachers can often use Sparkly to create activities that children can explore at the beginning of class and take them into a more discussion-based format. Some teachers even use it to create [homework] After they explain a topic to let the kids explore further and get a measure of their understanding,” Pujari said.

While the startup initially wants to work with schools worldwide for the next few months, it wants to open up customer access and let parents download the app by mid-2026.

The company has raised $5 million in pre-seed funding led by Swiss venture firm Founderful. Sparkly is Founderful’s first pure-play edtech investment. Lucas Weider, the firm’s founding partner, said the team’s technical expertise and market opportunity prompted him to invest in the startup.

“As a father of two kids who are now in school, I see them learning interesting things, but they’re not learning things like financial literacy or innovation in technology. I thought from a product perspective, Sparkli takes them away from video games and allows them to learn things in an immersive way,” says Vedder.

This post was first published on January 22, 2026.