Aakash Chaudhry’s Sparkl Edventure Bags $4 Mn From Zomato, Zerodha Founders

Aakash Chaudhry, the cofounder of offline coaching institute Aakash Educational Services Limited, has secured a seed funding of $4 Mn (around INR 34 Cr) from Zomato’s founder and chief executive Deepinder Goyal and Zerodha’s cofounder and CEO Nithin Kamath for his new online tutoring platform Sparkl Edventure.

Other marquee investors are also expected to join the cap table apart from Zerodha founder’s fintech and sustainability-focused fund Rainmatter and Goyal.

ET reported the development first.

Chaudhry launched Sparkl in October this year, along with Meritnation founders Pavan Chauhan and Ritesh Hemrajani. It offers tailor-made learning programmes for students navigating the international waters of International Baccalaureate (IB) and Cambridge curricula, with its internationally certified and trained teachers, AI enhanced pedagogy, a proprietary technology platform.

“Sparkl is at the forefront of personalized education, blending AI with expert pedagogy to deliver unparalleled one-on-one tutoring experiences. By focusing on IB, IGCSE, and A-level students, we aim to meet the growing demand for specialized and effective learning solutions,” Chauhan said.

Students from cities such as Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad have already been enrolled with Sparkl for its programmes, while it also plans to grow the platform leveraging its tech interventions, as per reports.

As of his last edtech venture, AESL was acquired by troubled edtech giant BYJU’S in a cash-and-stock deal for $1 Bn in 2021. The aftermath saw the two parties lock horns over the share swap as the Chaudhry family, which founded Aakash, refused to swap their shares, and Chaudhry retains an 11% stake in AESL today.

In September, Aakash Educational Services was known to be chalking out a revamping strategy ‘Aakash 2.0’ aimed at scaling up its operations, bringing efficiency and building hybrid learning centres.

This development comes at a time when the edtech sector has been seeing a revival in investor trust on their plans of expanding their offerings and presence.

For instance, Kreedo Early Childhood Solutions, a startup that offers transformation solutions for early learning in schools, raised INR 10 Cr ($1.2 Mn) in debt funding from Recur Club to boost its product offerings and expand operations, a few weeks ago.

Prior to that, edtech startup Bhanzu raised $16.5 Mn (around INR 139 Cr) in its Series B funding round led by VC firm Epiq Capital, to strengthen its presence in the US, in November. 

Updated at 11:54 AM

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