Hopster
Hopster is a London-based subscription service for preschool children, launched in the United Kingdom in December 2013 by founder Nick Walters, a former Viacom executive. Conceived as a television channel reimagined as a single app, it offers young children a completely ad-free, walled-garden world of well-known shows, learning games, music and books, with every piece of content chosen for children aged roughly two to six. There are no adverts, no in-app purchases and — crucially for parents — no way for a child to wander into unsuitable material, the weakness Walters identified in general streaming services with children's sections bolted on. Hopster grew quickly, topping preschool app charts in many countries, reaching more than 100 countries, winning recognition from Apple and Kidscreen, and attracting investment first from Sony Pictures Television and then a majority stake from the digital learning group Sandbox in 2019. It remains one of the best-known British examples of a service built specifically around how very young children actually use screens.
Founding and Launch
Hopster was founded by Nick Walters, who had previously worked at Viacom, the owner of Nickelodeon, and it was backed early on by experienced children's media figures including Howard Litton, a former managing director of Nickelodeon UK, and Peter Read, an adviser associated with Skype and LoveFilm. Walters became founder and chief executive. The service launched in the UK in December 2013, initially as an app for iOS devices, at a moment when tablets were rapidly becoming young children's first screens but most video apps were designed for adults.
The launch catalogue comprised roughly 800 episodes under non-exclusive licensing deals. From Nelvana came series such as Babar and the Adventures of Badou, Max & Ruby and Maggie and the Ferocious Beast; from DHX Media came Super Why!, Madeline, Paddington Bear and Monster Math Squad; and from Millimages came 64 Zoo Lane, Pablo the Little Red Fox and Louie. Alongside the shows sat learning games tied to the viewing, so that watching and playing formed one experience rather than two separate products.
The Idea: A Channel Inside an App
Hopster described itself as reinventing the children's TV channel: one destination, personalised for each child, combining famous television shows with an educational curriculum and gaming. Technology partner Ooyala, which powered the service from February 2014, described a TV-quality experience on tablets with studio-grade content protection, player analytics for personalisation and tools to help parents understand how their children had been viewing, in order to manage screen time. Within a month of launch the app had reached the top ten in Apple's 'Apps for Under 5s' category, and it was named among the App Store's best apps in both 2014 and 2015.
The safety design was the product's signature. Unlike a general service where a child can tap out of a children's section into the full adult catalogue, everything inside Hopster is preschool content. The service is 100 per cent ad-free, carries no in-app purchases, and is certified under the kidSAFE programme and compliant with the United States COPPA children's privacy rules, as well as being designed to be friendly for children with additional needs. For parents of two-to-six-year-olds, that guarantee — hand the child the tablet and nothing unsuitable can appear — was the core of the subscription proposition.
Content and the Learning Curriculum
Hopster's programmes are selected against an early-years curriculum, later formalised as its Discovery Learning Map, rather than simply licensed for popularity. The learning areas the service promotes include memory, numerals and sequences; alphabet, phonics and early literacy; mathematics and basic science; and social development such as empathy, caring, communication and decision-making. Shows, games, nursery rhymes, music and books are mapped onto those areas so that entertainment doubles as structured early learning, developed with educational professionals.
The catalogue broadened steadily. A two-year subscription video deal with ABC Commercial from June 2016 brought ABC Kids programmes to users in Australia and New Zealand, including Octonauts, Thomas & Friends and Guess How Much I Love You, plus episodes of The Wiggles' Ready, Steady, Wiggle. A partnership with TalkTalk made Hopster the first service of its kind included directly in a UK pay-TV provider's children's subscription, supplying 500 episodes on demand, including Octonauts, segments from Sesame Street and Hopster's own original animation Two Minute Tales. Freesat, meanwhile, became the first platform to launch Hopster as a children's on-demand player on television, through its Freetime service at £3.99 a month, with launch titles including Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom, Super Why!, Babar, Paddington Bear, Bob the Builder and Angelina Ballerina.
Growth and International Expansion
Growth was rapid. By 2016 Hopster was available in more than 100 countries, described itself as among the world's fastest-growing children's streaming and learning apps, had topped children's app charts in numerous countries — sixteen by one contemporary count, and it was ranked the number one grossing preschool app in 24 countries at the time of Sony's investment — and reported over half a million installs globally. It made its debut on Apple TV and launched in the United States, moving beyond its British base while keeping London as its home. Walters was honoured as Start-Up Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2015 Great British Entrepreneur Awards.
Distribution deals multiplied across platforms and territories: television launches through Freesat and TalkTalk in the UK, telecom and pay-TV partnerships abroad, and later arrangements that took Hopster content onto services such as the STV Player's children's area, Roku at its launch, and United Group networks. The pattern was consistent — Hopster supplied a ready-made, trusted preschool layer that platforms could offer parents without building their own children's service or vetting content themselves.
Sony Pictures Television Investment
In October 2016 Sony Pictures Television Networks took a minority stake in Hopster, becoming a strategic equity investor and taking a seat on the board. The investment round was led by Sony in association with Sandbox Partners, then Hopster's largest existing investor. Sony's interest was complementary: its own children's portfolio, especially in the UK, included the linear and advertising-supported services POP, Tiny Pop and Kix, which together held the largest share of the commercial children's Freeview market, and Hopster gave it a subscription, preschool-focused counterpart. Walters said the partnership would help take Hopster to the next level, pointing to Sony's global reach, existing children's portfolio and technology presence, and to ambitions built around the Apple TV app and the recent United States launch to establish Hopster as the world's leading non-linear preschool player.
Sandbox Takes a Majority Stake
The next ownership step came in November 2019, when a substantial equity investment round led by Sandbox and Venture Founders left Sandbox holding a majority stake in Hopster. Financial details were not disclosed. Hopster said the funding would accelerate strategic partnerships with global distribution companies in telecoms and pay television, support investment in content acquisitions and originals, update product development and support its UK operations. Sandbox's founder Bhav Singh described Hopster as a market-leading service joining a portfolio of digital learning products already reaching tens of millions of families, including CoolMathGames, Poptropica, Tinybop and Curious World.
In 2021 Sandbox organised its children's properties into a dedicated Sandbox Kids division, with Hopster Studios producing original content focused on aspirational shows with a deeper message. Hopster's content also fed into Sandbox's later combined PlayKids+ app, launched in beta in 2023, where Hopster continued to operate as a separate app while its programmes appeared in a branded area of the larger service. Hopster's journey — independent start-up, Sony-backed growth, then absorption into a digital learning group — mirrors the consolidation of the children's app market as it matured.
Leadership Change
In 2020 Nick Walters stepped back from the chief executive role he had held since founding the company, moving to an advisory position after nearly seven years. Leadership passed to Miki Chojnacka and Tyrell Ellis. Announcing the change, Walters said he was proud of the team's achievements and confident in his successors, while the incoming leaders emphasised expanding the library and focusing on progressive learning principles to establish Hopster as the brand of choice for millennial parents helping their children learn through stories. By then the service was active in over 100 countries in eight languages, creating preschool shows and interactive learning content and holding awards from Apple and Kidscreen, among others.
Originals and Educational Positioning
Although built largely on licensed favourites, Hopster invested in original productions that expressed its educational values, most visibly Two Minute Tales, its original animation retelling classic stories in short form for preschool attention spans. Originals gave the service content no rival could offer and let it embed its curriculum directly in storytelling. Its positioning throughout remained distinct from both free, advertiser-funded children's apps — which it criticised implicitly through its ad-free, certified-safe design — and from general entertainment streamers, whose children's sections it regarded as insufficiently protected. Hopster sold trust as much as content.
Place in Children's Streaming
Hopster's significance lies in timing and focus. It launched in 2013, before most major broadcasters had credible preschool streaming offers, and it treated the tablet not as a smaller television but as a combined viewing, playing and learning device designed for small fingers. Its commercial history — chart success in dozens of countries, strategic investment from a Hollywood studio's television arm, then a majority sale to an education group — shows how valuable a trusted preschool brand became as children's viewing moved online. For British children's media, it stands as a home-grown service that competed globally in the app era while keeping its base, its curriculum and its identity in London.
