After Koo’s shutdown, Mayank Bidawatka launches AI-driven photo app ‘PicSee’ for effortless, private sharing

Backed by Blume Ventures and General Catalyst, the Koo cofounder’s new venture uses on-device AI and encrypted facial recognition to enable automatic, consent-based photo exchanges between friends.

By  Storyboard18Oct 16, 2025 10:17 AM
After Koo’s shutdown, Mayank Bidawatka launches AI-driven photo app ‘PicSee’ for effortless, private sharing
Unlike traditional photo-sharing platforms such as WhatsApp, Google Photos, or iCloud, PicSee eliminates the friction of manual sharing, enabling what the company calls “no-effort photo exchange.”

Months after the shutdown of homegrown social media platform Koo, its cofounder Mayank Bidawatka is back with a new bet- an AI-powered photo-sharing app called PicSee, designed to make exchanging photos between friends automatic, secure, and entirely consent-driven.

Developed by Billion Hearts Software Technologies, Bidawatka’s Bengaluru-based startup backed by Blume Ventures, General Catalyst, and Athera Venture Partners, PicSee positions itself as the world’s first AI-enabled mutual photo-sharing app. It aims to fix what Bidawatka calls “the biggest unsolved problem in smartphone photography” - the millions of personal photos that remain trapped in people’s devices and never get shared.

“There are over 15 trillion photos in the world, with 2 trillion more clicked every year - yet most never get shared,” Bidawatka said. “PicSee fixes this with a patent-pending mutual sharing flow - you get your unseen pics from friends, and for them to get theirs, they share yours.”

PicSee introduces a “give to get” model where users automatically receive photos of themselves - but only when they agree to share their own in return. Once two users approve each other, the exchange becomes seamless and recurring, powered by AI-based facial recognition that detects new photos and identifies who’s in them.

The app works quietly in the background, scanning the gallery to identify friends, generating personalized invites, and sharing approved photos- all without requiring manual uploads, albums, or links. Each user gets a 24-hour review window to approve or retract any image before it’s sent, ensuring full consent.

Unlike traditional photo-sharing platforms such as WhatsApp, Google Photos, or iCloud, PicSee eliminates the friction of manual sharing, enabling what the company calls “no-effort photo exchange.”

Soft-launched in July 2025, PicSee has already seen strong organic growth, driven by word-of-mouth rather than paid promotions. The app now has users across 27 countries and 160 cities, and its adoption rate has grown 75-fold in two months.

Over 150,000 photos have been exchanged on PicSee so far, with the company claiming that 30% of users now have more photos of themselves on the app than in their own galleries, suggesting the “mutual sharing” loop is working.

Billion Hearts Software Technologies was founded in late 2024, just months after Koo - once touted as India’s alternative to X (formerly Twitter)- shut down following failed acquisition talks. With a lean 11-member team and $4 million in seed funding from marquee backers including Blume Ventures, General Catalyst, and angels from Flipkart, Myntra, Ola, InMobi, and redBus, Bidawatka’s new company is now focused on building “privacy-safe, globally scalable consumer AI products.”

First Published on Oct 16, 2025 10:17 AM

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