Berlin's Tiny Monster Raises €4M for Screen-Free Audio
Tiny Monster founders and GALAKTO developers Frank Ließner and Timo Dries - © Tiny Monster
Berlin startup Tiny Monster has secured €4 million in seed funding to scale its children's audio system GALAKTO. Investors include bm|t (Beteiligungsmanagement Thüringen), Reziprok, and experienced industry angels, as reported by Starting Up.
Founded in 2023 by Frank Ließner and Timo Dries, Tiny Monster emerged from the children's app ecosystem Fox & Sheep and is now evolving into a hardware company. The fresh capital will fuel production expansion, content catalogue growth, and retail development.
GALAKTO offers a refreshingly simple solution for children's audio entertainment. The system works completely offline – no internet connection or complicated setup required. Kids simply snap magnetic tokens containing audio stories onto the device, and playback starts immediately. At home, GALAKTO delivers high-quality sound through its speaker system. For travel, the innovative Twist'n'Go mechanism lets children twist off the player, plug in headphones, and take their stories on the road.
"Parents want stories, not surcharges. Kids need a reliable audio player, not another screen. GALAKTO is the cassette recorder for the next generation," explains co-founder Timo Dries.
The platform currently offers over 300 tokens featuring content from major partners like Universal Music Group, Oetinger, Kiddinx, and Hörbuch Hamburg. Popular titles include "Bibi Blocksberg," "Der Pumuckl," "Die Olchis," and albums from YouTube's most successful children's music channel "Hurra Kinderlieder." The catalogue also features pre-teen content such as "Alea Aquarius" and "Kira Kolumna."
Both founders bring deep expertise to the venture. Dries, a father of four with experience at Nickelodeon and Wooga, previously led Fox & Sheep as managing director. Together with Ließner, he developed over 30 children's apps that achieved 45 million downloads and won 37 awards, including Apple's App of the Year.
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