Mayank Bidawatka Rolls Out Photo Sharing App PicSee

SUMMARY

Koo cofounder Mayank Bidawatka has launched an AI-enabled mutual photo sharing app, PicSee on Google Play and Apple Store

The app has been launched under Bidawatka’s new venture, Billion Hearts Software Technologies

PicSee uses AI photo finder and face recognition technology to help users get photos from their friends’ phones

Koo cofounder Mayank Bidawatka has launched an AI-enabled mutual photo sharing app, PicSee on Google Play and Apple Store.

Bidawatka took to LinkedIn to announce the launch of the new app. “We find your friends from your gallery, help you invite and approve them. After a one-time approval, you can exchange pics with them forever. You get 24 hours to review outgoing photos,” he said in a post.

The app has been launched under Bidawatka’s new venture, Billion Hearts Software Technologies.

Billion Hearts raised a seed funding of $4 Mn (around INR 33.7 Cr) almost a year ago from Blume Ventures, General Catalyst and Athera Venture Partners.

As per the details on the app store, PicSee uses AI photo finder and face recognition technology to help users get photos from their friends’ phones. It claims to use a photo barter system, under which a user’s friends can get their photos from the user only when they share the photos of the users in their phones.

For privacy and security, the app does not allow users to take screenshots. Also, by default, PicSee excludes nudes and private content from its AI scan. The app claims that it does not store the shared photos on the cloud and they remain only on the user’s device.

Billion Hearts plans to add new features like AI photo and video editing on the app soon.

Currently, PicSee has over 500 downloads on Google Play. Bidawatka said that after the soft launch, the app has users in 27 countries and 160 cities, and over 1.5 Lakh photos have been exchanged via the app.

Bidawatka started Billion Hearts after his previous venture, microblogging platform Koo, shut operations in July last year after acquisition talks fell through. Founded by TaxiForSure cofounder Aprameya Radhakrishna and Bidawatka, Koo got a lot of traction in 2021 when Twitter (now X) was involved in a standoff with Centre.

On the back of rising user numbers, Koo went on to raise over $50 Mn from the likes of Tiger Global, Accel, 3one4 Capital, Kalaari Capital and Blume Ventures. However, it couldn’t retain the users for long. Falling user numbers and cash crunch led to the shutdown of the platform.