Koo co-founder Mayank Bidawatka launches PicSee, an AI-led ‘mutual photo sharing’ app

Koo co-founder Mayank Bidawatka launches PicSee, an AI-led ‘mutual photo sharing’ app

Billion Hearts Software Technologies, founded by serial entrepreneur Mayank Bidawatka — best known as the co-founder of social platform Koo — has launched PicSee, which it calls the world’s first AI-powered mutual photo-sharing app, the company announced on October 16.

The app introduces a “give to get” concept that allows users to automatically receive photos of themselves taken by friends — but only when they share their own in return. Once both users approve each other, the exchange becomes seamless and recurring, eliminating the need for manual photo requests or uploads.

“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.

How does PicSee work?

PicSee uses AI-driven facial recognition to scan a user’s photo gallery, identify their friends, and generate personalised invites. Once both friends approve the connection, the app automatically shares the photos they’ve taken of each other.

Users get a 24-hour review window to approve or retract any image before it’s exchanged, ensuring full control over what gets shared. The app continues to work in the background, detecting new photos and prompting users to connect with friends they’ve recently photographed.

Unlike platforms such as WhatsApp or Google Photos, PicSee eliminates the need for manual uploads or album creation. The company describes it as a “no-effort photo exchange” — one that uses privacy-safe AI to remove the friction that usually keeps personal photos trapped in phone galleries.

What makes PicSee different?

PicSee’s design focuses on privacy-first architecture, a feature that Bidawatka calls “non-negotiable” for any modern consumer AI product. All photos stay on users’ devices and are encrypted during transfer, meaning that even PicSee employees cannot view or store them. The app also disables screenshots, allows users to recall shared images at any time, and enforces a 24-hour review window before sharing.

“Everything stays encrypted and on-device, so even PicSee can’t see your photos,” Bidawatka said. “It’s simple, private, and built for global scale.”

This approach, the company believes, addresses the gap between the explosion of smartphone photography and the persistent reluctance to share personal photos.

How has PicSee performed so far?

PicSee was soft-launched in July 2025 and has since grown rapidly through user referrals rather than paid promotions. The company said users now span 27 countries and over 160 cities, with adoption rising 75 times in just two months. More than 150,000 photos have already been exchanged through the app.

The company also claims that 30 percent of users now have more photos of themselves on PicSee than in their own camera galleries, suggesting that the “mutual sharing” loop is successfully recovering unseen photos trapped in friends’ devices.

Who’s behind Billion Hearts and what’s next?

Billion Hearts Software Technologies was founded by Bidawatka in late 2024, a few months after Koo shut down following the collapse of acquisition talks with multiple investors. The platform, once seen as India’s alternative to X (formerly Twitter), ran out of funds and ceased operations after failing to secure a strategic buyer.

Billion Hearts, which raised $4 million in seed funding from Blume Ventures, General Catalyst, Athera Venture Partners, and angels behind startups such as Flipkart, Myntra, Ola, InMobi, and redBus, is a compact 11-member team focused on building “privacy-safe, globally scalable consumer AI products.”