Company

From a father's concern emerges a safe infrastructure for Europe.

How a simple question – what should our children do with AI – turned into the platform standard for sensitive audiences in Europe.

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Glass plate with a map of Europe and symbols for family, school and safety.

2023

A father's concern became an idea.

In 2023 our founder Oliver Mauckner, father of three, intensified his engagement with AI. His conclusion was unambiguous: a technology that will shape this generation must not pass his own children by. What he was looking for, for children, simply did not exist.

In a conversation with a long-time friend, a father himself, the central sentence crystallised: every child should get access to this technology. Data security and data sovereignty are non-negotiable.

At the end of 2023 the first prototype emerged from that. Deliberately small, deliberately close to the child, deliberately thought through legally.

2024

From the problem grew a vision.

Early 2024 a realisation crystallised out of the first feedback: children under 14 are the most legally demanding audience in Europe. Anyone who wants to work seriously here cannot be a mere wrapper. They have to build their own infrastructure.

Tobias Friderich joined as co-founder, two long-standing companions as business angels. With that the founding quartet was in place: two operational founders, two business angels in daily exchange.

Mid-2024 HillcrownAI GmbH was founded in Kaiserslautern. With a clear vision: a safe AI infrastructure for Europe, starting with children. Because the bar is highest there – and precisely for that reason robust for every further sensitive audience.

At the end of 2024 KinderGPT went live as the first application. Since then team, sparring partners and application fields have been growing in step.

Today

The vision became a platform.

What started as kids' AI is today the Safe AI infrastructure for Europe. With KinderGPT as the strongest use case and further solutions on the same platform. From that first application emerged an architecture onto which further sensitive audiences can safely dock.

Platform

Our own Safe AI infrastructure

Our own RAG-based Safe AI infrastructure. GDPR-native. AI-Act-ready. Open-source base models, our own moderation, our own CMS. Our own servers in Germany.

Solutions

KinderGPT today, more in preparation

KinderGPT is live with 200,000+ downloads and 60,000+ supported users. Further solutions for sensitive audiences across eight use cases are in preparation.

Standard

Trust, compliance, scalability

Trust, compliance and scalability as the foundation. Methods, audits and safety controls are documented and independently verifiable.

Safe AI. Safe Data. Made in Germany.

Founders & leadership

Founders & leadership

Oliver Mauckner, Founder of HillcrownAI

Founder

Oliver Mauckner

Operator background in information technology and digital products. Drives go-to-market, strategy and the direct conversations with partners, regulators and investors.

Tobias Friderich, Co-founder of HillcrownAI

Co-founder

Tobias Friderich

Co-founder & CEO of carpilot.ai. Product and engineering background with a focus on building and scaling. Owns operations, product execution and roadmap delivery at HillcrownAI.

Torsten Katthöfer, Chief Technology Officer of HillcrownAI

Chief Technology Officer

Torsten Katthöfer

Background in conversational AI and multi-agent systems. Owns AI architecture, the Multiguard safety layer and platform scaling.

Engineering & Product

Engineering & Product team

The team brings together experience from backend, security, AI safety, design systems, conversational AI and scalable consumer products.

Detailed profiles, references and availability we share with qualified partners under NDA.

Supporters

Who has our back.

We do not build kids' AI alone. Research and infrastructure partners give our path independent outside perspective and institutional substance.

Two brothers from an entrepreneurial family

Over many years they led a German family business with more than 1,000 employees in the fourth generation. Today they accompany HillcrownAI as business angels and sparring partners on growth, finance, leadership and entrepreneurial discipline.

Prof. Dr. Beate M. Gleitsmann

Professor of Business Administration at Rheinische Hochschule Köln, head of the Media, Marketing & Innovation faculty. Has supported companies and organisations for many years in deploying AI responsibly, strategically and effectively.

ProFiZ consortium

BMBFSFJ-funded multi-stakeholder consortium on protective-by-default AI for children. Brings science, civil society and industry around one table - pedagogical and developmental-psychology review of the KinderGPT methodology in a peer-reviewed format.

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