Ben Drury says Paul McCartney invested in Yoto three times since 2019
Drury says McCartney first invested in the children's audio company in 2019 as Yoto built a card-based business that has reached more than five million children.
By RuntimeWire Staff · Published
Primary source: Business Insider
Why it matters
Yoto combines a $119.99 player with physical cards and subscriptions, giving it a way to sell content after the hardware purchase. Its competition with Tonies and Lunii shows the scale of the screen-free audio category, while the recall of approximately 251,165 Yoto Minis shows the safety burden of putting connected hardware in children's hands.
In an as-told-to account published by Business Insider, Ben Drury says Paul McCartney invested in Yoto three times, beginning in 2019. The amounts and dates of the later investments have not been disclosed.
Drury and Filip Denker cofounded Yoto, a London-based children's audio company. Drury traces the idea to a stroller fitted with a tablet holder, which pushed him toward building screen-free technology for his children. He says Yoto has since reached more than five million children globally, though that is the founder's reach figure rather than a disclosed active-customer count.
Yoto describes the resulting product as a connected, screen-free player influenced by Montessori principles, with children using physical cards to control what they hear. Yoto says its card-based player offers licensed audio without a screen, camera, microphone or advertising. The current third-generation Yoto Player, listed at $119.99 in the US, has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 32GB of storage, a night light, a room thermometer and up to 16 hours of playback.
The second act after digital music
Yoto was far from Drury's first attempt at building a technology business around audio. He graduated from King's College London with a degree in physics and philosophy of science. Seedcamp says he began his career in 1996 as a founder of dotmusic.com. He later cofounded 7digital, which supplied digital music infrastructure and licensing to services including Samsung, BlackBerry and Spotify. Drury led 7digital through its 2014 public listing, according to Seedcamp.
Drury told Business Insider that he left 7digital burned out. The first Yoto prototype was a project for his son rather than an immediate plan to start over as a hardware founder.
Filip Denker changed the calculation, according to Drury's account. Denker had been one of 7digital's earliest employees and had become a father around the same time. The pair shared concerns about children growing up around touchscreens and had already established a working relationship in digital music.
The player is an entry point into a catalog of audiobooks, music, podcasts, educational programs and sleep content. Families can also turn their own recordings or audio files into cards. Yoto combines hardware sales with physical content cards and subscription access to digital audio.
In a 2025 LinkedIn post about Yoto's financial results, Drury said Yoto's audited revenue rose from $5M in 2020 to $127M in 2024. These remain founder-reported figures and have not been independently verified.
Kickstarter supplied the first market test
Drury and Denker tested the concept publicly through crowdfunding in 2017. Business Insider says the Kickstarter had a goal of about 20,000 pounds. The campaign forced the founders to move beyond experiments made for their own children. As Drury told Business Insider, accepting money from customers created an obligation to deliver.
Drury said his music-industry network then opened a path to McCartney, who had written a children's book. Drury says McCartney first invested in Yoto in 2019 and invested twice more afterward; the amounts and dates of the later checks have not been disclosed.
Publicly reported financing includes a $17M Series A in May 2021 and a $22M financing in 2024 involving the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Another report described the 2024 transaction as an 18 million pound round, leaving a discrepancy in the reported size.
Cards, figurines and choose-your-own stories
Yoto competes most directly with Toniebox, which plays audio through collectible Tonies figurines rather than cards. Tonies reported preliminary 2025 revenue of 630 million euros, up 31%, indicating the scale already available in children's screen-free audio. Yoto's third-generation player adds Bluetooth, a night light and a room thermometer to its card-based audio system.
Lunii's My Fabulous Storyteller lets children choose story elements that the device uses to create a story. Yoto centers the experience on selecting a physical card tied to a specific book, music release or other piece of audio.
Hardware still has hardware problems
Yoto's shift from a family prototype to mass-market electronics also created safety and supply-chain responsibilities that a content platform can avoid.
The CPSC recall covered approximately 251,165 Yoto Mini speakers over battery overheating, melting and fire hazards. Consumers were offered a full battery replacement kit.
The recall is the harder side of Drury's platform thesis. Cards, subscriptions and licensed audio can extend customer relationships, while the player itself puts Yoto inside bedrooms, playrooms and cars, where hardware reliability carries unusually high stakes.