The company behind Ping

Ping is made by SafeCircles, a small, independent software company in Germany. We build apps for one audience only — children and families — the way we'd want them built for our own kids: private by default, free of ads and tracking, and genuinely good to use.

It started at home

Ping began with a problem its founder had as a parent. Denis von Brasche went looking for a messaging app he could trust for his own daughter — somewhere she could talk to family and close friends without ads, without strangers, and without a business model built on her data. Nothing fit. The apps made for children felt like afterthoughts. The apps that actually worked well were built for adults.

So he built the one that didn't exist. That's still how SafeCircles works: we make the products we couldn't find anywhere else.

What we believe

A few principles guide everything we build:

Children come first.

If something is good for engagement or growth but not good for children, we don't build it.

Privacy by design.

We collect only what's strictly necessary, keep no more than required, and never sell data. Ever.

No attention traps.

No endless feeds, no engagement loops, no manipulative notifications — our goal is to be useful, not to maximise screen time.

Honest by default.

Plain-language privacy policies, and a clear answer to what we collect, why, and what happens to it.

Made in Germany, built for European privacy

SafeCircles GmbH is incorporated and operated in Germany. Ping is developed and hosted here, with all data on European servers, and built around GDPR and European privacy standards: data minimisation, transparency, and strong privacy defaults. We design with international child-privacy frameworks in mind too, including the UK's Children's Code and the U.S. COPPA rules.

And because Ping is funded by a simple family subscription — not by advertisers — our incentives stay where they belong: with families, not with anyone who wants to reach their children.

SafeCircles at a glance

Company: SafeCircles GmbH
Based in: Teltow, Germany
Founded by: Denis von Brasche
Ownership: Independent and founder-owned
Apps live: Ping, lalla
Privacy standard: GDPR and European privacy principles
Data sold to third parties: Never
Ads or tracking: None
Funding: Family subscriptions, never advertising

Ping is one of several apps we build at SafeCircles. Want the bigger picture? Read more about SafeCircles and what we're building →

Frequently asked questions

Who makes Ping?

Ping is built by SafeCircles GmbH, an independent software company based in Teltow, Germany. We build privacy-first apps exclusively for children and families.

How does Ping make money?

Through a simple family subscription. There are no ads and no data sales — the subscription is the only thing that funds Ping. We never sell data or share it with third parties for advertising or profiling.

Can I really trust a small company with my child's data?

Being small is part of the point. We're not chasing scale for investors or selling attention to advertisers, so we don't have the incentives that lead bigger platforms to collect more than they need. We're based in Germany under European data protection law, we never sell data, and you can read exactly what we collect and why in our plain-language privacy policy.

Built by people whose own kids use it.

That's the whole idea. Private by default, no ads, no data sales — just a safe place for your child to stay close to the people they love.