Sparkil thinks children will learn faster through more engaging and interactive content
Sparkli
“30 years ago, if your child wanted to know more about Mars, you’d have given them a book; more recently you might suggest they watch a video,” says Lax Poojary, the CEO and co-founder of Swiss educational technology (edtech) start-up Sparkli. “Today, kids should be able to explore Mars for themselves.”
To be clear, Sparkli, which is today announcing it has raised $5 million of pre-seed funding, is not suggesting putting young people on space missions. Sparkli describes itself as a “multi-modal, AI-native learning engine”; in plainer English, it uses artificial intelligence to enable children to explore their ideas and boost their learning through engaging and inspiring digital experiences.
Poojary and co-founders Mynseok Kang and Lucie Marchand met at Google, where they worked across a number of its businesses including YouTube. The latter prompted their interest in video content, but it was when Poojary and Kang had their own children that the idea for Sparkli began to take shape. “My son has always asked me lots of questions about how things work or why something is happening,” Poojary says. “Like most people, I turned to sources like ChatGPT or Gemini for answers, but I could see my son just switching off when confronted with lots of text – it just kills kids’ curiosity.”
Sparkli’s founders therefore recruited a team comprising AI developers and education specialists to develop a much more visual and interactive learning experience. Aimed at children aged five to 12, Sparkli starts by prompting children on what question they want to ask – how to build a space station on Mars, say, or what snow is made of. Its AI engine then generates an “expedition” – an interactive session that enables children to explore their question while learning critical lessons.
Separately, Sparkli has also developed a series of pre-built pathways – expeditions designed to teach skills and lessons in areas such as financial literacy, entrepreneurship and sustainability. It aims to add more of these pathways over time.
The founders believe Sparkli offers something new in a global edtech industry that a recent study from Grand View Research estimates will be worth almost $350 billion by 2030 and which is growing at a rate of 13% a year.
It’s a crowded market, with plenty of innovative companies that recognise the potential of AI to transform education and learning. Better-known firms including Duolingo, Coursera, Carnegie Learning, Quizlet and Squirrel AI have all launched AI-powered personalised learning and adaptive tutoring solutions. And start-ups including Korea’s Riiid and Sweden’s Sana Labs have raised significant investment to build out AI tools and platforms in edtech.
However, Sparkli’s founders and investors point out that many of these solutions are aimed at older children and deliver more formalised learning, often tailored to school curriculums or exam syllabuses. Poojary argues: “Children learn by exploring, making choices, asking questions and discovering what inspires them.” He points to a gap in the market for a capable yet safe platform that pairs modern generative technology with strong guardrails and age-sensitive design.
The business has had support from AI developers at ETH, the Zurich-based technical university, and has begun trialling Sparkli with families and schools. A strategic pilot is now underway with a leading private school group providing access to more than 100 schools and 100,000 students.
In time, Sparkli expects to sell subscriptions to its platforms to both education providers and parents – possibly with a free version of the tools also available. The company’s pre-seed round gives it time to scale the generative learning engine that underpins the platform and to explore commercialisation.
The round is led by Founderful, the Swiss venture capital firm, with participation from Arc Investors and a grant from Innosuisse a Swiss Government body. “Sparkli represents a step change in how children can interact with knowledge,” says partner Lukas Weder. “The team is applying high calibre engineering and thoughtful pedagogy to a space that desperately needs innovation. Their traction with schools shows a real appetite for tools that foster curiosity and agency rather than passive consumption.”
