Kutuki: India’s Vernacular Preschool Learning App

Vasundhra Tewari

| 2025-08-19 | The Ascendants

In today’s digital age, every platform is overflowing with content, be it educational, entertaining, meme-worthy, or otherwise. Among all this, kids’ learning content has grown into one of the widest categories, stretching from preschool basics to much more, but the major roadblock was not being vernacular.

That’s what Kutuki is solving: making preschool learning easy with regional diversity, creating a Swadeshi app that aims to transform how India’s 200 million youngest learners learn.

Created by Soniqmantra Private Limited, Kutuki has become a trusted preschool learning app for children between the ages of 2 and 6 across India. It brings together stories, rhymes, games, worksheets, and even live classes, turning early education into a fun and engaging experience.

The Birth of Kutuki

The app was launched in 2019 to create a learning space for early learners that reflects India’s diverse culture, traditions, and its multilingual environment. With this essence, the name Kutuki was coined. It is a wordplay of kautuka, meaning “the curious one” in Sanskrit.

The founder duo, Sneha Sundaram and her husband Bharath Bevinahally, believe it is essential to sow the seeds of our diverse culture at an early stage. Hence, they created a platform that teaches them the early skills with a touch of culture.

“Like Sesame Street (US culture) and Peppa Pig (British culture), we want to build a pre-eminent Indian edutainment brand that children and families across India can connect with and easily access via technology. We are also seeing an opportunity to look at other distribution models and product offerings, in physical, digital, and phygital forms,” says Sneha

Learning Made Fun with 3 Animated Companions

The platform has three animated companions that make the e-learning process easy, interactive, and fun. The three characters include:

Kutu: He is a small and playful boy who is curious and inventive. He’s always thinking of something new
Ki: Full of energy and adventure, Ki is like a whirlwind, always cartwheeling and somersaulting. At the same time, she’s deeply caring, especially when it comes to her little brother, Kutu
Minku: He is a gentle and fun-loving baby elephant, and is Kutu and Ki’s best friend. She adores children, has a soft spot for bananas, and joins them on all their learning adventures

These animated friends provide comfort, encouragement, and relatability, making education engaging for little ones.

Kutuki: The Curriculum

Phonics & Writing Modules

Organized in progressive stages:

Little Learners (3–4 years)
Curious Champions (4–5 years)
Mighty Genius (5–6 years)

The phonics program helps children pick up sound recognition, learn CVC words, practice blends, and gradually build reading fluency.

Worksheets & Printables

For Nursery, Lower Kindergarten, and Upper Kindergarten, their curriculum offers rich activity packs: tracing, puzzles, phonics, writing, and reading tasks, that are available in both digital and print formats.

Interactive Themes & Activities

The app also offers theme-based learning, which includes GK, STEM, animals, space, habits, India, emotions, and more. It is also packed with rhymes, stories, games, arts, and crafts.

Uninterrupted Learning During Pandemic

When COVID-19 hit and the whole world came to a standstill, education was also compromised, with schools remaining closed for a long time. But Kutuki provided uninterrupted learning to over 2 million preschoolers from more than 2,700+ cities, through its app, live classes, and mini-programs, ensuring structured learning at home.

In 2021, Kutuki clocked over 95 million minutes of learning, taught more than 1,050 children through live nursery classes, grew its team, and also raised $2.2 million in grants.

A Special Mention by PM Modi

Talking about the accolades and recognition, the Kutuki Learning App has won acclaim as the Aatmanirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge award, and later received a special mention by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his radio programme Mann ki Baat as a Swadeshi app that aims to transform how India’s 200 million youngest learners gain knowledge.