From Byju's Dispute to New Horizon: Aakash Chaudhry’s Sparkl Gets Backing from Zomato, Zerodha Founders

Renowned education entrepreneur Aakash Chaudhry's new venture, Sparkl Edventure, has received backing from Zomato chief executive officer (CEO) Deepinder Goyal and Zerodha CEO Nithin Kamath, sources familiar with the development told The Economic Times. As per the report, Kamath’s fintech and sustainability-focused fund Rainmatter along with Goyal, will participate in a $4 million seed round.

Based on its 'one size fits one', Sparkl is a live tutoring platform that aims to provide personalised, one-on-one tutoring programs for students in grades 6 to 12 pursuing International Curricula such as the IB and Cambridge. It has started enrolling students from major Indian cities such as Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad, as well as Singapore.

Chaudhry launched Sparkl in October with Pavan Chauhan and Ritesh Hemrajani, founders of Meritnation.com, an edtech company acquired by his family business Aakash Educational Services Ltd (AESL) in 2020. Three years ago, Byju's acquired AESL in a cash-and-stock deal at $950 million. This was one of the largest edtech deals till date in India. Chaudhry holds 11 per cent stake in AESL.

Saga of Byjus's and Aakash

As per the deal, a 70 per cent cash component and 30 per cent equity component of Byju's parent company Think & Learn would go to the promoters of Aakash — the Chaudhry family, and private equity firm Blackstone.

However, the share-swap deal faced challenges after the Chaudhry family declined to swap their remaining stake citing governance issues. In response, Byju's sent a legal notice to the founders of the test prep chain due to their alleged resistance to complete the share swap.

Read More | India’s Unicorn Startups See 39,000 Employee Exits in a Month, Attrition Rate Reaches 4.5%

Due to this failure, Think and Learn and (AESL) had to withdraw the merger petition of both companies, which was planned earlier.

Ranjan Pai, chairman of Manipal Education and Medical Group, is the single largest shareholder in AESL with 39 per cent, according to Business Line.

In 2023, Aakash board approved the conversion into equity of the $300 million invested by Pai. In the previous year, Pai also invested around $200 million in AESL to help Byju’s clear its debt and interest to Davidson Kempner. As per the report, Byju's founder Raveendran Byju also borrowed capital from the Pai for daily operations cost at Think & Lear, pledging his personal stake in AESL.

This provided much-needed relief to Byju's, grappling with legal and financial woes, including a term loan B of $1.2 billion.

Think & Learn currently holds 26 per cent, Raveendran has 17 per cent along side the Chaudhury family.

Last year, reports claimed the possibility of Chaudhry returning as the CEO of the tutoring unit as the two parties were finally closing in on a deal following months of dispute.