Yoto

Yoto is a screen-free audio platform for children, built around players that play physical cards instead of showing a screen. A child pops in a Yoto Card and playback begins; the catalogue holds more than 1,000 titles across stories, music, podcasts and radio, for ages 0 to 12+. The range covers the all-in-one Yoto Player, with stereo sound, night light and sleep sounds, and the portable Yoto Mini.

The company began in 2015, when co-founders Ben Drury and Filip weighed the effects of excess screen time on young children and Montessori’s ideas about independence and physical objects in play. With no background in hardware they built a rough prototype, brought in industrial designer Tom in 2016, and launched the first Yoto Player on Kickstarter in November 2017, fully backed within days.