Yoto
Yoto is a London-based consumer technology company that sells screen-free audio players for children, paired with physical NFC-enabled content cards and a subscription service. The platform serves parents of children aged 0–12 through direct-to-consumer e-commerce, with expanding reach into schools.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2015
- HeadquartersLondon, United Kingdom
- Headcount101–250
- GTM typeB2C
- OfferingHardware or Manufacturing
What Yoto does
Yoto is a London-headquartered consumer technology company founded in 2015 that builds a screen-free audio platform for children aged roughly 0–12, combining proprietary hardware players, NFC-enabled physical content cards, a companion mobile app, and a subscription service. The core product ecosystem centers on the Yoto Player (3rd Generation, £89.99) for the home and the Yoto Mini (2024 Edition, £59.99) for portable use; both feature 32GB internal storage holding 500–600+ hours of audio, Bluetooth connectivity, and child-safe design (no microphone, no camera, no ads). Content is delivered through 1,100+ physical and digital Yoto Cards (priced £7.99–£29.99), which children insert into the device to trigger licensed stories, music, podcasts, and educational audio from partners including Disney, Warner Bros (Harry Potter), Universal Music Group, The Beatles, Marvel, Netflix, Sesame Street, Julia Donaldson, and Paw Patrol/Spin Master. Free built-in features include a daily podcast (Yoto Daily), family radio stations, and sleep sounds, and a Make Your Own Cards feature enables household personalization.
Yoto generates revenue through a mix of hardware sales (~40% of turnover), one-time purchases of physical and digital audio cards, and the recurring Yoto Club subscription (~25% of revenue), with additional contributions from an affiliate program (7–12.5% commissions) and the 2025-launched Creator Programme, which lets independent audio creators publish and monetize content on a marketplace basis. The company sells primarily direct-to-consumer through owned regional e-commerce storefronts in the UK, US, EU, Canada, and Australia, and supplements with a wholesale program and a growing education direct-sales channel that reached over 5,000 classrooms in the UK and US since 2024. Reported 2024 revenue was just under £95 million, up 86% from £51 million in 2023, against an installed base exceeding 2 million devices and 15 million physical cards distributed. The company is privately held, backed by Sir Paul McCartney and Mark Zuckerberg among others, and has raised capital from HSBC UK ($15M, October 2024), an additional ~$23M round (June 2024), and earlier rounds led by Acton Capital and Global Founders Capital.
Yoto firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Yoto
- Legal name
- Yoto
- Website
- https://uk.yotoplay.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2015
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 101–250 employees
- Short description
- Yoto is a London-based consumer technology company that sells screen-free audio players for children, paired with physical NFC-enabled content cards and a subscription service. The platform serves parents of children aged 0–12 through direct-to-consumer e-commerce, with expanding reach into schools.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Yoto industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Children's Audio Devices
- NAICS
- Hobby, Toy, and Game Retailers (45912), Electronics and Appliance Retailers (4492), Audio and Video Equipment Manufacturing (3343)
- SIC
- Household Audio & Video Equipment (3651), Games, Toys & Children's Vehicles (No Dolls & Bicycles) (3944), Retail-Hobby, Toy & Game Shops (5945)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Family/Student/Group Subscription Plans (MPAIACAI)
- akta.pro secondary industry
- Toy Rentals & Subscription Boxes (CRALAFAK)
Keywords
Where Yoto is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- London
- HQ country
- United Kingdom
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
Yoto business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2C
- Offering type
- Hardware or Manufacturing
- Cost components
- Supply Chain, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Hardware Sales: Sales of Yoto Player (3rd Generation at £89.99) and Yoto Mini (at £59.99) devices. Hardware accounts for approximately 40% of total turnover.
- Physical Audio Cards: Physical NFC-enabled cards containing stories, music, and educational content. Cards are priced between $7-$30 (approximately £7.99-£29.99). Over 15 million physical cards have been distributed. The company offers over 1,100 titles.
- Digital Cards: Digital versions of audio content without physical cards, available at lower price points than physical cards.
- Yoto Club Subscription: Subscription service accounting for approximately 25% of total revenue. Provides ongoing access to content and benefits for members.
- Affiliate Program Commissions: Yoto operates an affiliate program offering 12.5% commission on certain audio products and 7% on others.
- Yoto Tokens Loyalty Program: Loyalty program where customers earn tokens for purchases (5 tokens per £1 spent), social media follows, newsletter signups, and birthday treats. Tokens can be redeemed at checkout (up to £100) or for free shipping.
- Creator Programme: Platform allowing independent audio creators to create and sell content on Yoto, with Yoto taking a commission on sales.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| One time/ perpetual license | Pay-as-you-go | Yoto Player (3rd Generation) - £89.99 |
| One time/ perpetual license | Pay-as-you-go | Yoto Mini - £59.99 |
| Unit Pricing | Pay-as-you-go | Individual Audio Cards - £7.99 to £29.99 |
| Unit Pricing | Pay-as-you-go | Make Your Own Cards - Pack of 10 at £19.99 |
| Unit Pricing | Pay-as-you-go | Bundle & Save - 10% extra discount |
| Subscription | Monthly | Yoto Club Subscription |
| Transaction based/ take rate | Pay-as-you-go | Affiliate Commission - 7% to 12.5% |
| Other | Monthly | Yoto Tokens - Loyalty Program |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels7 records
Marketing channels12 records
Yoto product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Yoto designs, manufactures, and sells screen-free audio players (Yoto Player 3rd Generation at £89.99 and Yoto Mini at £59.99) for children aged 3-12+, which play content via NFC-enabled physical cards. The company offers a library of over 1,100 audio titles licensed from Disney, Warner Bros (Harry Potter), Julia Donaldson, Universal Music Group, Marvel, Sesame Street, and others, with the Yoto Club subscription, Yoto App, and Make Your Own Cards feature supporting ongoing consumption. Hardware accounts for approximately 40% of revenue, with Yoto Club subscription adding approximately 25%.
Product overview
Yoto is a screen-free audio platform for children that combines hardware players with physical NFC-enabled cards and a companion mobile app. The product ecosystem centers on two hardware devices: the Yoto Player (3rd Generation, £89.99) as the primary home unit with advanced features including a programmable night light, room thermometer, and stereo sound, and the Yoto Mini (2024 Edition, £59.99) as a portable travel companion. Content is delivered via 1,100+ physical or digital Yoto Cards priced £7.99-£29.99, which children insert into the player to trigger stories, music, podcasts, and educational audio. A Make Your Own Cards feature enables custom content creation from personal recordings or MP3s. The platform generates revenue from hardware sales (~40% of turnover), physical card purchases, and Yoto Club subscriptions (~25% of revenue). Free built-in features include Yoto Daily podcast, Yoto Radio, and sleep sounds. The Creator Programme and Yoto Space community platform support independent audio creators. An education initiative has expanded Yoto into over 5,000 classrooms since 2024, contributing to reported 35% year-over-year market share growth in the screen-free audio device segment.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Yoto Originals: Original stories and content created by Yoto, available exclusively on the Yoto platform, including reimagined classics, all-new characters and adventures, and uniquely interactive audio content.
Products and services
- Yoto Player (3rd Generation) Screen-free audio player for children aged 3-12+ featuring NFC card-based content delivery, programmable night light with clock, room temperature monitoring, up to 16 hours battery life, 32GB internal memory (600+ hours offline audio storage), acoustically-engineered stereo sound (40mm, 5W speakers), Bluetooth connectivity, WiFi setup, and USB-C/wireless charging. Includes free built-in audio (daily podcast, radio, sleep sounds).
- Yoto Mini (2024 Edition) Compact, travel-friendly screen-free audio player for children aged 3-12+ with NFC card-based content delivery, Ok-to-wake clock, up to 14 hours battery life, 32GB storage (500+ hours offline audio), Bluetooth, USB-C charging, audio jack for headphones, and lanyard holes. Includes free white noise, sleep sounds, and podcast content.
- Yoto Cards (Physical NFC-enabled) Physical plastic cards with NFC chips that children insert into Yoto Players to trigger audio playback. Cards contain stories, music, podcasts, educational content, and interactive activities. Made from food-safe plastic, reusable with Make Your Own cards, starting from £7.99.
- Yoto Digital Cards Digital-only version of Yoto Cards available at lower price points, downloadable via the Yoto App and linkable to Make Your Own physical cards for screen-free child experience.
- Yoto App Companion mobile app for iOS and Android enabling player setup, card management, content downloading, parental controls, sleep timer configuration, volume limits, and offline audio management. Required for initial device setup and ongoing feature updates.
- Yoto Club Subscription Subscription programme offering exclusive card content, curated collections, and access to Yoto Club Cards library. Generates approximately 25% of total company revenue alongside hardware sales (~40%) and physical card purchases.
- Make Your Own Cards Platform product allowing users to create custom Yoto Cards from personal recordings, MP3 files, podcasts, or radio streams. Supports up to 100 tracks per card, 1 hour max per track, 100MB per track limit, 500MB total per card. Blank cards sold in packs of 10 at £19.99. Free blank cards included with every player purchase.
- Adventure Jacket Protective silicone jacket for Yoto Player (3rd Generation) priced at £24.99, providing durability protection for portable use.
- Card Case Protective case for Yoto Cards priced at £24.99, used to organize and protect physical card collections.
- Wireless Headphones (Yoto) Wireless headphones compatible with Yoto Player and Yoto Mini for personal, quiet listening or travel use.
- Wired Headphones (Yoto) Wired headphones compatible with Yoto Player and Yoto Mini for personal listening.
Quantifiable outcome
- 86% year-over-year sales growth in 2024
- +7 more outcomes
Companies that use Yoto
Customer profileNamed customers1 record
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Yoto technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration9 records
Feature10 records
Yoto partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
22 partnerships are on record, tiered minor and core.
- BPI (British Phonographic Industry)minorYoto featured as speaker at BPI Insight Session 'Meaningful Connections: Making Music Relevant For Generation Alpha' alongside UMG UK, Beano Brain, SuperAwesome, and Young Voices.
- Universal Music GroupcoreOngoing partnership with UMG for music content distribution on the Yoto platform. Olivia Dean's 'The Art of Loving' album released on Yoto as part of this partnership, with physical cards priced at $19.99 CAD.
- Global Day of UnpluggingminorYoto joined the cultural coalition for the 17th Annual Global Day of Unplugging, alongside Billboard, Eventbrite, Daylight, Brick, The Offline Club, and Log Off Movement.
- Universal Music GroupcorePartnership for releasing soundtracks including 'Wicked' themed soundtrack card for holiday season, featuring 56 minutes of songs from the Wicked franchise.
- DisneycoreLicensed Disney content including Frozen, Moana, Disney Pixar Storybook Collection, and interactive Disney content for the Yoto platform.
- Warner Bros (Harry Potter)coreLicensed Harry Potter audio content including Books 1-3 Bundle and Chamber of Secrets. Exclusive Yoto editions of Harry Potter content.
- Julia DonaldsoncoreFeatured author including The Gruffalo, Zog, Stick Man, and other beloved picture book adaptations.
- LadybirdcoreLadybird Audio Adventures series and story collections available on Yoto platform.
- Paw Patrol / Spin MastercorePAW Patrol content including Mighty Pup Power and other stories.
- The BeatlescoreLicensed Beatles music including Yoto Edition compilations (1962-1966 and 1967-1970).
- MarvelcoreMarvel content including Spider-Man 5-minute stories.
- Netflix (KPop Demon Hunters)minorKPop Demon Hunters soundtrack from Netflix film available on Yoto platform, featuring chart-topping songs 'Golden' and 'Your Idol'.
- Sesame StreetcoreSesame Street content including Goodnight World! Season 2 in partnership with Headspace.
- Beano BrainminorCo-presenter at BPI Insight Session on Generation Alpha music consumption.
- SuperAwesomeminorCo-presenter at BPI Insight Session on Generation Alpha music consumption.
- Bowers & WilkinsminorCo-presenter at BPI Insight Session on Generation Alpha music consumption.
- ShopifycoreE-commerce platform powering Yoto's online stores. Supports Shop Pay payment option.
- StripecorePayment processing infrastructure with fraud prevention capabilities. Powers Shop Pay installments.
- Auth0coreAuthentication services for Yoto website and platform security.
- CloudflarecoreCDN and bot management services for website performance and security.
- Apple (App Store)coreiOS app distribution through Apple App Store with Apple Pay integration.
- Google (Play Store)coreAndroid app distribution through Google Play Store with Google Pay integration.
Scale indicators15 records
Recent moves7 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Yoto competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Tonies: Tonies is the direct category leader and closest competitor: Toniebox is a screen-free audio player for children that uses physical figurines placed on top of the device to trigger audio content. Tonies reported €630M in 2025 revenue with 29%+ YoY growth, dwarfing Yoto, and shares the same age band, parental value proposition, and marketplace-plus-hardware model.
- Jooki: Jooki is a smaller direct competitor offering a screen-free audio player for kids using NFC figurines/tokens, mirroring Yoto's NFC card mechanism. Comparable on product architecture, target customer (parents of young children), and content marketplace model, though smaller in scale and traction.
Broad incumbents
- LeapFrog Enterprises: LeapFrog (owned by VTech) is a long-established educational kids electronics brand offering tablets, learning toys, and audio/visual devices for the same 3–9 age band. While not a direct audio-card competitor, LeapFrog competes for parental wallet share on screen-free/educational kids tech and has significantly larger retail distribution.
- VTech Holdings: VTech is a global leader in electronic learning products for children (parent of LeapFrog). Its product range includes kids audio devices, tablets, and learning toys that overlap with Yoto's screen-free proposition, though VTech operates as a broad incumbent across many categories rather than specialising in audio.
- Spotify (Kids app): Spotify's Spotify Kids app is a direct audio content competitor in the kids' segment, offering music, stories, and audiobooks for children. While Spotify has no proprietary hardware, it competes with Yoto's Yoto Club subscription on the streaming-content layer and benefits from a much larger overall subscriber base.
- Bose Corporation: Bose is a broad incumbent in household audio (SoundLink, Home Speaker lines) that competes indirectly with Yoto Player/Mini on speaker quality and parent brand consideration. Bose also co-presented with Yoto at BPI's Generation Alpha music session, signalling overlap in the family-audio conversation.
- Amazon (Fire Kids / FreeTime): Amazon's Fire Kids Edition tablets and FreeTime Unlimited kids content subscription compete with Yoto for parental spend on kids' entertainment and educational content. Amazon offers a much larger content catalogue and lower-cost hardware but explicitly uses a screen, the very proposition Yoto is positioned against.
- Fisher-Price: Fisher-Price (Mattel) is a broad incumbent in the 0–5 toys and kids audio products category, including branded audio/storytelling toys. While not a direct NFC-player competitor, Fisher-Price competes for the same parental gift-purchase occasion and shelf-space at major retailers.
Emerging players
- Hatch (Rest): Hatch makes the Rest+ and Restore kids/family sleep devices with light, sound, and audio content — competing for the bedtime-routine use case that Yoto explicitly targets (82% of Yoto Player owners cite easier bedtimes). Hatch overlaps on audio-plus-light hardware and a recurring content model but is positioned as a sleep aid first.
- Pocket FM: Pocket FM is an audio-series streaming platform expanding into kids/family audio content with a marketplace-driven creator model that mirrors Yoto's Creator Programme. Overlaps with Yoto on long-form audio storytelling for families and the longer-term shift from screen-video to audio-first consumption.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks1 record
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Yoto social profiles
Digital presenceYoto compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance1 record
Yoto financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Yoto leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles12 records
Yoto funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds5 records
Investors7 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Yoto M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Yoto
What does Yoto do?
Yoto designs, manufactures, and sells screen-free audio players (Yoto Player 3rd Generation at £89.99 and Yoto Mini at £59.99) for children aged 3-12+, which play content via NFC-enabled physical cards. The company offers a library of over 1,100 audio titles licensed from Disney, Warner Bros (Harry Potter), Julia Donaldson, Universal Music Group, Marvel, Sesame Street, and others, with the Yoto Club subscription, Yoto App, and Make Your Own Cards feature supporting ongoing consumption. Hardware accounts for approximately 40% of revenue, with Yoto Club subscription adding approximately 25%.
Is Yoto a public or private company?
Yoto is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Yoto founded?
Yoto was founded in 2015. It employs 101 to 250 people.
Where is Yoto based?
Yoto is headquartered in London, United Kingdom, in the Europe region.
How does Yoto make money?
Seven revenue lines are on record. Hardware Sales are the primary driver. The others are physical Audio Cards, digital Cards, yoto Club Subscription, affiliate Program Commissions, yoto Tokens Loyalty Program and creator Programme.
Who are Yoto's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Tonies and Jooki. Broad incumbents are LeapFrog Enterprises, VTech Holdings, Spotify (Kids app), Bose Corporation, Amazon (Fire Kids / FreeTime) and Fisher-Price. Emerging players are Hatch (Rest) and Pocket FM.
Does Yoto have an API?
No public API is recorded for Yoto.
What industry is Yoto in?
Yoto's product category is Children's Audio Devices. Its primary akta.pro industry code is MPAIACAI, Family/Student/Group Subscription Plans, with a secondary code of CRALAFAK, Toy Rentals & Subscription Boxes. Its NAICS code is 45912 and its SIC code is 3651.