Aakash Chaudhry Secures $4M Seed Funding for Sparkl Edventure from Zomato, Zerodha
Aakash Chaudhry, one of India’s leading education entrepreneurs, has secured investment from two of the country’s top consumer tech billionaires, Deepinder Goyal of Zomato and Nithin Kamath of Zerodha, for his new venture, Sparkl Edventure, according to sources. Kamath’s Rainmatter, a fund focused on fintech and sustainability, along with Goyal, is taking part in a $4 million seed round, which is also expected to attract additional high-profile investors.
In October, Chaudhry joined forces with Pavan Chauhan & Ritesh Hemrajani, founders of Meritnation.com, an edtech company acquired by his family business Aakash Educational Services Ltd (AESL) in 2020, to launch Sparkl. This comes three years after the $950 million cash-and-stock sale of AESL to Byju’s in one of India’s largest edtech deals to date. Despite the sale, Chaudhry retains an 11% stake in AESL.
Sparkl aims to provide bespoke one-on-one online tutoring for students in grades 6 to 12, specializing in International Baccalaureate (IB) and Cambridge curricula. The platform offers personalized classes across subjects such as mathematics, science, languages, business studies etc. With teachers already onboard, Sparkl has begun enrolling students from major Indian cities like Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Pune, and Hyderabad, as well as Singapore and plans to grow the platform leveraging its tech interventions.
“The initial plan was to launch in the new year, but with the product being ready ahead of schedule, the timeline was advanced,” said a source familiar with the developments. “The seed round will further accelerate the rollout”.
Chaudhry declined to comment. Goyal and Kamath remained unavailable.
India’s $900 million IB/Cambridge K6-K12 market is highly competitive, with numerous players vying for dominance. Globally, however, this segment represents a $2 billion opportunity, further complemented by the booming SAT/ACT admission counseling market, which is significantly larger with major players like Ascent Now and Crimson Education.
Unlike AESL, which was an offline-first test prep giant with over 215 centers nationwide, Sparkl will operate as a fully digital platform delivering curated, personalized content. While AESL focused on classroom-based preparation for engineering and medical entrance exams, Sparkl is designed to cater to students pursuing international curricula or aspiring to study abroad.
Beyond academics, Sparkl also aims to address students’ emotional and social well-being. “Stress and peer pressure are significant challenges for today’s students. To combat this, Sparkl will integrate monthly interactions with well-being coaches, focusing on mental health and overall growth”, said a source. These insights will further refine the platform’s personalized teaching methodologies.
Aakash Chaudhry’s father, J.C. Chaudhry, founded AESL in 1988 with a single center in Delhi's Janakpuri. Over the next three decades, the family transformed it into India’s leading test prep provider, impacting over 250,000 students annually. In 2019, private equity firm Blackstone acquired a 37.5% stake in AESL, valuing the company at $500 million.
With Sparkl, Chaudhry is once again aiming to revolutionize edtech by merging personalized education with a strong focus on mental well-being, positioning the platform to carve out a unique niche in the rapidly changing global education sector.