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Yoto
Interactive audio platform for kids
- 101-200 employees
- B2C
- Retail
- Toys
- Entertainment
- Kids
- Kemp House, 152-160 City Road, London, England EC1V 2NX, GB
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Company mission
To help parents inspire the next generation of independent, creative minds.
Our take
A key development in the last 5 years has been a move towards screen-based kids entertainment like apps and streaming services. However, more recently there have been concerns that excessive screen time for children can be damaging to health and development. So, many consumers are looking for alternative products which will expose children to modernity without the drawbacks of many modern devices. This is the demand which Yoto is setting out to capitalise on.
Yoto's product - a screen-free audio platform - enables children to access features such as audiobooks, podcasts, and soundscapes via physical cards inserted into the device. The Yoto Player has received considerable early praise from consumers and from investors also, who granted Yoto considerable funding.
Perhaps the most difficult challenge for a business operating in the highly competitive children's toys market is keeping its product current. However, Yoto's software is fully customisable, meaning that alongside its library of content, parents can add their own audio files to the device to suit the interests of their children. This imbibes Yoto with a customisability that gives it an edge, especially as children's tastes change with age.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Benefits
- Workplace pension
- Choice-based approach to where you work - we encourage everyone to come in to the office minimum once a month.
- A Work from Anywhere policy giving you the opportunity to work from a different location for a temporary period
- Yoto player and starter pack of cards
- 2x volunteer days a year
- Competitive salary (based on experience)
- Company socials and celebrations, including our annual Yoto Fest
Funding (last 2 of 3 rounds)
Jun 2024
$23m
ANGEL
May 2021
$17m
SERIES A
Total funding: $43.2m
This company has top investors
Leadership
Ben Drury
(CEO)They have extensive experience as a Non Executive Director for the likes of Marmalade and Intercede. Since 2016, they have also been a board member and investor for Pimoroni.
Filip Denker
(Co-Founder)They co-founded Yoto alongside Ben in 2017.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Yoto
- More diverse content At Yoto, we celebrate diversity. As we grow, we are working hard on helping families foster an inclusive environment through the content in our library. We’re working with our partners to licence more great kids’ audio by creators from diverse backgrounds, and which feature diverse characters, stories and perspectives. You will see more content like this launching in 2023. Following your feedback, we are especially excited to add more content from creators who identify as coming from an underrepresented group, titles that include themes dealing with diversity and inclusion, together with different representations of a variety of families. We are an audio company and we believe that diversity should be represented in narration too! And where this content isn’t available from our publishing partners, we’ll be looking to develop it ourselves as part of our Yoto Originals range. If you have suggestions of kids’ audiobooks, music or podcasts which you’d like to hear on Yoto, please let us know. We’re always open to suggestions from our community!
- Yoto Team In addition to our content library, we are working hard to continue to build a culturally, socially and ethnically diverse workforce that represents the beautiful diversity of our customers. We recognise that a diverse and inclusive work environment promotes innovation, leads to better decision-making and will continue to help us provide even more diverse content. We welcome everyone, and we highly value and celebrate the perspective of new voices, beliefs and perspectives to our team. We have a passionate and engaged D&I group - which is sponsored by a member of the Yoto Executive Team - and we are always working to introduce ways of working that foster a positive and purposeful environment where everyone feels listened to. Our flexible ‘choice-based’ approach to work means everyone can be in control of the day-to-day decisions on where and when they work, which means everyone can create a setup that works for them and one in which they can thrive. This means we can easily accommodate any special requirements or needs of individuals to ensure no one is excluded. We are evolving our recruitment processes to help us actively seek and attract candidates from diverse backgrounds and communities. We do not insist on minimum education qualifications (unless a specific role requires it) - prioritising experience, passion and attitude instead, our job descriptions are reviewed to remove language that may be subtly ‘gender coded’ and, wherever possible, we conduct panel interviews (with a minimum of two interviewers) to eliminate any risk of bias. Finally, we commit to paying London Real Living Wage rates - regardless of where someone is based in the UK - and we extend this out to the equivalent standards amongst our international teams