It started with two small
children and a daily battle
It started in 2004, in a log cabin at the foot of Lake Endine in Italy. Two small children, the same battle every single day, getting them to wash their hands and brush their teeth without the parent being the villain. So our founder drew half a dozen characters instead. The side project he kept coming back to for twenty years.
What turned it into a company was watching what the screen was doing. Children's technology built with the same hooks as gambling apps. A generation quietly losing conversation, social skills, and the real-world play that shapes a childhood. The tools families were handed were designed to compete for a child's attention, not protect it.
We are building the platform that closes that gap. For every child. In every household. Whatever language they speak at home, whatever their learning profile, whatever their postcode.
In Build: We're not done. We're building in public, because we believe that's how it should be built.
The statements we build everything around.
Our mission, our vision, and our public promise are not taglines. They are the standard every decision is held to.
Mission
Unlocking heroes through
fun-filled, verified missions.
What this means: We don't manage children. We don't reward compliance.
We unlock the hero that already exists in every child, through real-world missions that are measurable, verified, and genuinely fun.
Vision
Create a world where every child, from any culture, ability, or background can grow, thrive, and become the hero of their own future.
What this means: Every design decision, every character origin, every accessibility feature, and every pricing choice is stress-tested against this vision. If it excludes a child, it does not belong in the platform.
Our Promise
Every child is a hero. Online, in person, and in their communities.
What this means: Heroism is not a reward for high achievers. It is the starting position of every child on this platform. Our job is to make it visible.
We are not building an app. We are building the evidence that every child is capable of far more than the screen in front of them.
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The people building it.
Mike J Midgley
Founder and Chief Executive, Scrubbing Squad
Mike carried Scrubbing Squad for twenty years before it became a company. He drew the first characters in 2004 to win a daily battle with his own two children, then watched the screen do to a whole generation what no child should face.
After 32 years building, scaling, and exiting businesses across the UK, the Netherlands, and the US, he went all in at 55. In September 2025, with private AI finally able to run safely on a child's own device, he burned the ships. He calls this his last crusade, with one goal: to unlock 10 million heroes by 2035, and to give upto half the company's profits, to the children most likely to be missed manged by the Unlocking Heroes Foundation.
Jamie Midgley
Chief Operating Officer, Scrubbing Squad
Jamie turns vision into a working machine. He has been Mike's integrator since 2015, the one who gets the company organised, the team aligned, and the right things shipped, on time, to standard.
Eleven years in tech and digital, across more than 100 companies on three continents, from startups to enterprise aviation. He has built and run global digital agencies in the UK, the US and the Netherlands. A great mission deserves great execution. That is the part he owns.
Alexey Shevchik
Partner CTO, Scrubbing Squad
(Co-Founder and CTO, SoftTeco)
While visionaries sketch the future, Alexey programs it. Thirty years building software that cannot fail, from industrial systems where an error costs millions to platforms serving millions of users across the US, Israel and the Middle East.He co-founded SoftTeco and grew it into a 500-person international software firm.
He builds to global security standards and insulates architecture against extreme load. He serves as Partner CTO through the raise because, with three children of his own, he believes in the mission. He has already turned the idea into a production-ready build.
We're a small founding team. The advisors, investors, and partners joining us are listed separately.
What we stand for. And how we prove it.
In 2026, the law finally caught up with what we have always believed. The Online Safety Act and the new Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act, in force this year, now hold online services to account for children's safety. We don't treat that as a box to tick. Every product decision, every data choice, and every piece of content starts with one question: is this safe for a child?
Safe by design, not by age gate
Scrubbing Squad is not a social network and carries no open feeds, no chat with strangers, and no harmful content to wall off. The private AI runs on your own device, confirms the real-world task is done, then ends the screen session. We remove the risk rather than police it.
Built for the 2026 safety laws
The Online Safety Act's children's duties are now in full force, and the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act became law in 2026. We are built to the standards Ofcom enforces and to the ICO Children's Code, with safety designed in from the foundation, not retrofitted once the rules arrived.
UK GDPR and PECR compliant
We collect only what we need. We store it securely. We never sell it. Parents hold control of their child's data at all times. Read our Privacy Policy
COPPA-aligned for US families
Our data architecture is aligned to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act for families joining from the United States.
Everyone is vetted
Every member of staff, contractor, and advisor is checked against the UK's safer recruitment standard, including Enhanced DBS checks where the law requires them. The people building this are held to the same standard as the people who teach in a classroom.
Clinical validation in progress
We're building our clinical validation methodology with domain advisors. Results will be published here as they're confirmed.
In Build
Safe Harbor certification and clinical validation are active processes. Current status on The Build page.
We're building this with the people who care most about getting it right.
Scrubbing Squad is being built in public. That means the people who help shape it now are the people whose names belong on it.
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Are you a domain expert?
We're forming our founding advisory board, looking for people who've been here before: child development, SEND, media and IP, ChildTech, ESG, clinical psychology, community development.
Are you an advocate parent or educator?
Scrubbing Squad Ambassadors are the parents, teachers, and community leaders who believe in what we're building and want to be part of the founding story.
"Every child is a hero. The people building that future belong in this conversation."
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