With so many successful photo apps available, you’d have to create something pretty special to stand out from the app crowd and outshine Instagram, Snapchat and Flickr. But Lord Bilimoria, EB coverstar and founder and chairman of Cobra Beer, believes he has done just that with PictoSo, his new instant photo-sharing app for iOS.
Created by Lord Bilimoria, his cousin and tech entrepreneur Rashid Bilimoria and app developer Philipp Reisinger, the app enables users to create shared albums of photos and ten-second videos. Its main differentiator from an app like Instagram is that it appears to focus on creating both public and private shared albums, enabling users to easily collate photos and videos without having to necessarily splurge them across Facebook feeds. The free app also allows users to edit photos, adding filters, effects, stickers and captions, as well as allowing albums to be shared via social media, email, SMS and messenger.
So how long till users can take it for a test drive? The app launches today in Cambridge to coincide with the University’s Freshers’ week, before being rolled out across the UK, India and across the globe. And Lord Bilimoria is clearly confident that there is a gap that his app can fill.
“We are witnessing the convergence of a number of trends: smartphone usage rising significantly, broadband access and speed expanding rapidly; and the cost of data storage and digital tools falling,” he said. “It’s clear that now is the time to launch an app that makes it easier for users to share their photos instantly.”
“With an estimated one trillion photos due to be uploaded to the internet annually by the end of 2015, PictoSo is designed for the millennial generation, those who are increasingly living their lives on their mobile.”
Evidently, if Lord Bilimoria wants to top Instagram, he has a serious mountain to climb. But one thing is for sure: he has form when it comes to business success. 
