Photo-sharing app Locket is banking on a new celebrity-focused feature to fuel its growth

Locket, the photo-sharing app that allows users to share images with friends that are then displayed on their home screens as widgets, wants to stay on your radar, and it’s enlisting the help of celebrities.

When it launched in 2022, Locket emerged as a competitor to BeReal, offering a more authentic way to connect with others. The app places a widget on iPhone home screens that updates with the latest pictures added by friends. Users can select up to 20 close friends, creating an intimate space to share unfiltered selfies and updates on their lives.

The app claims to have over 80 million total downloads and more than 9 million daily active users, and its users have shared more than 10 billion photos to date. Notably, the company also shared with TechCrunch that it achieved profitability in 2024, a significant accomplishment given its relatively modest fundraising efforts of just $12.5 million.

To drive additional growth, Locket has been quietly testing a feature called “Celebrity Lockets” for the past six months, which the app officially announced on Wednesday. 

Image Credits:Locket

Celebrity Lockets mostly focuses on music artists, letting them engage with fans by sharing details about upcoming shows, new album releases, and other news. Locket has already tested this feature with Suki Waterhouse and JVKE, with more artists to be announced soon.

To use the feature, celebrities can share a link on their social media platforms, or fans can look them up in the app to add them, and they can then send photos directly to their fans’ home 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 told TechCrunch. 

Locket allows artists to choose a number of fans to connect with, ranging from 1,000 to 15,000 slots. For instance, Suki has 5,000 fans on the app and has helped Locket attract hundreds of new members. According to the company, 17% of these 5,000 fans were 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 said.

Although Moss says the feedback from testers has been good, it’s unclear whether this will help Locket grow its user numbers. BeReal tried something similar with a feature called “RealPeople,” but the reception wasn’t entirely positive, with some people saying that they preferred the anti-social media app as a way to escape from celebrities.