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Within an year of its launch, Koo cofounder Mayank Bidawatka has decided to shut his AI-enabled mutual photo sharing startup, PicSee, as it failed to scale. 

The startup, which used to operate under Billion Hearts Software Technologies, was launched in October 2025. It used AI photo finder and face recognition technology to help users get photos from their friends’ phones. It claimed to use a photo barter system, under which a user’s friends could get their photos from the user only when they shared the photos of the users in their phones.

Speaking to Inc42, Bidawatka said PicSee’s biggest challenge wasn’t user engagement but distribution. While the app saw strong retention in the early weeks as groups of friends joined the platform, its growth remained constrained by a network-driven model that required entire friend circles, rather than individuals, to come onboard.

“Retention wasn’t the issue. Users who joined with their friends stayed engaged. The real challenge was acquiring entire friend networks. Despite experimenting with different growth strategies, we couldn’t make that scale,” he said.

PicSee was in a pre-revenue stage when the founder decided to wind up the startup. 

“For products like PicSee, which are inherently social, the journey typically unfolds in three stages: build the product, build distribution, and then monetise it. We had a clear monetisation roadmap, including a premium subscription offering features such as downloading high-resolution photos, automatically curating albums, and more. However, we got stuck on solving the distribution challenge,” he added. 

Following the shutdown, Billion Hearts Software Technologies will return nearly 65% of the about ₹33 Cr raised by itto investors, including Blume Ventures, General Catalyst, Athera Venture Partners, and a host of angel investors. 

Notably, this is Bidawatka’s second venture to shut down after microblogging platform Koo ceased operations in 2024 after prolonged acquisition talks fell through. 

More broadly, the Indian startup ecosystem continues to witness a spate of shutdowns and business pivots due to capital crunch, scaling challenges, failed acquisition deals, and more. Yesterday, Inc42 reported that fashion focused quick commerce startup Klydo has paused its consumer operations less than a year after launch and is looking to pivot its business around a “sharper product vision”. 

Earlier this year, online matchmaking platform Juleo shut operations after failing to raise further capital. Last year, the ecosystem saw at least 25 startups, including Astra, Beepkart, BharatAgri, Blip, among others, wind up operations.

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