Former King and Mojang product leader Andreas Tael joins Barnluren as Co-founder

Stockholm, August 2026 — Barnluren, the Swedish company behind a screen-free private phone network for children, today announced that Andreas Tael has joined as Co-founder.

Andreas Tael spent ten years at King, most recently leading the New Games R&D team — around 20 people running up to three games at once, built to find out fast whether real players wanted them. Around ten concepts came out of it, including Minecraft Blast. He then joined Mojang as Senior Product Manager for Minecraft Java, running the platform team behind one of the most loved games and opinionated communities in software.

"Andreas has spent more than a decade learning what holds attention. He's joining us to build the opposite," says co-founder Greg Chrystall, who worked closely with Tael at King. "We've spent 2026 building the foundations — hardware, firmware, back-end and apps. The next problem isn't engineering: it's getting Barnluren into as many households as we can without losing what it's for. Andreas will lead on both."

Barnluren is a phone for children with no screen and no internet: a real handset, on a closed network, that only rings the people a parent has approved. The product launched publicly in Sweden in July 2026.

Read the full announcement on the Barnluren blog.

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