Tyra Banks Just Backed a Startup App That Offers a Genius Way to Send Pictures to Friends

February 10, 2015

Tyra Banks, fierce television personality and drill sergeant to aspiring models, can now call herself a startup investor. ScreenPop, a neat new app that allows you to send images directly to your friend’s lockscreen, was officially released today and has garnered exceedingly positive reviews.

ScreenPop is the brainchild of startup app Locket, a personalized lock-screen app that displays your chosen content without having to unlock your Android phone.

Locket, which was featured among “Google’s Best Apps of 2014,” recently announced a funding round of $3.2 million from investors that include Tyra Banks, Turner Broadcasting Systems and Great Oaks Venture Capital to develop ScreenPop.

The new app takes Locket a step further, exploiting your phone’s lock-screen “real estate” by letting you send and receive images to your friends’ lock screens — and the results have been interesting. Locket CEO Yunha Kim explained:

“Imagine every time you check your phone, you are seeing notes and photos from your friends right there on the lock screen. As long as you are using the phone, you can’t miss it.”

The concept of ScreenPop was met with raves during its testing phase. Since a friend must also have the app on their phone to receive images, some creative users secretly downloaded the app on their friends’ phones, pranking them with funny pictures until they figured it out. Other users are even using the app to ask out their crushes just in time for Valentine’s Day.

ScreenPop is now available for free in Google Play; there is still no word yet on when the app will be available in the Apple Store.

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