Picture-sharing app Locket is banking on a brand new celebrity-focused characteristic to gasoline its development | TechCrunch

Locket, the photo-sharing app that permits customers to share pictures with buddies which can be then displayed on their residence screens as widgets, desires to remain in your radar, and it’s enlisting the assistance of celebrities.

When it launched in 2022, Locket emerged as a competitor to BeReal, providing a extra genuine method to join with others. The app locations a widget on iPhone residence screens that updates with the newest photos added by buddies. Customers can choose as much as 20 shut buddies, creating an intimate house to share unfiltered selfies and updates on their lives.

The app claims to have over 80 million complete downloads and greater than 9 million every day lively customers, and its customers have shared greater than 10 billion pictures thus far. Notably, the corporate additionally shared with TechCrunch that it achieved profitability in 2024, a major accomplishment given its comparatively modest fundraising efforts of simply $12.5 million.

To drive further development, Locket has been quietly testing a characteristic known as “Celebrity Lockets” for the previous six months, which the app formally introduced on Wednesday. 

Movie star Lockets largely focuses on music artists, letting them have interaction with followers by sharing particulars about upcoming reveals, new album releases, and different information. Locket has already examined this characteristic with Suki Waterhouse and JVKE, with extra artists to be introduced quickly.

To make use of the characteristic, celebrities can share a hyperlink on their social media platforms, or followers can look them up within the app so as to add them, they usually can then ship pictures on to their followers’ residence screens.

“With posts going straight to fans’ home screens, it offers the kind of immediacy and intimacy that other platforms can’t replicate, turning passive followers into active participants,” founder Matt Moss instructed TechCrunch. 

Locket permits artists to decide on plenty of followers to attach with, starting from 1,000 to fifteen,000 slots. As an example, Suki has 5,000 followers on the app and has helped Locket entice a whole bunch of recent members. In keeping with the corporate, 17% of those 5,000 followers have been new to Locket.

“Fans feel special knowing they’re one of just a few thousand rather than just another follower. This also preserves the same intimacy and brand of Locket as a product today … We knew our community used Locket to share music with their friends, so being able to also connect with their favorite artists is a natural evolution for the platform,” Moss stated.

Though Moss says the suggestions from testers has been good, it’s unclear whether or not this can assist Locket develop its consumer numbers. BeReal tried one thing related with a characteristic known as “RealPeople,” however the reception wasn’t fully constructive, with some folks saying that they most well-liked the anti-social media app as a method to escape from celebrities.