The Toca Boca Story
From Sweden To San Francisco
“We were supposed to go out and buy a company that did children’s apps… but that’s not what we did. We looked and found nothing so we decided to make them ourselves.”
CEO Björn Jeffery co-founded Toca Boca with Emil Ovemar in late 2010, and within two years, it dominated the children’s app market with over 100 million downloads for its digital toys, which include Toca Hair Salon, Toca Kitchen, Toca Band, and Toca Train, among others. Born out of a big publisher, Bonnier Corporation, Toca Boca was given funding to explore new avenues of digital business when traditional media advertising was suffering. Within two years, they had made a profit and were in a position to pay back the investment.
Newnham: Toca Boca makes digital toys for children. What were you like as a kid?
Jeffery: I think I was a fairly curious kid, and I was definitely ahead of my years. I had teachers telling my parents that I was asking questions that I just should not be asking at that age, like, “Can we work together in groups, please?” I think it’s because I had a…
