Glance, a company that runs a popular lockscreen platform targeting Android smartphones, sets its sights on the United States. According to sources familiar with the matter, who spoke to TechCrunch, the Indian startup recently launched a pilot in the United States in partnership with Motorola and Verizon, plans a full roll-out later this year.

A Bengaluru-headquartered startup that has already begun making inroads in India, Southeast Asia, and Japan, where it expanded last year, is a venture funded by investors that include Google and Jio Platforms. Glance's lockscreen platform, a person familiar with the matter said, currently reaches more than 450 million smartphones and is active on about 300 million of them, serving those customers a customized feed of news, local events, sports updates, media content, and interactive games directly to their lock screens without having to install an additional app.

Glance doesn't collect personal data of users; instead, it relies on usage patterns to inform its recommendation engine. A source says that Glance also has a collaboration in process with Qualcomm to build a special AI-powered lockscreen experience, and if that partnership materializes, it will allow Glance significantly reduce the data it consumes for its personalized feed and also move much of the processing to on-device.

In the U.S., one source said Glance won't be selling ads on the lockscreen. Glance can be uninstalled, for what it's worth, and is preinstalled on hardware.

Android smartphone makers have been under growing pressure to increase revenue in recent years, as competition is intensifying and profit margins on hardware are razor-thin. At first, many of those companies looked to augment their core business with new revenue streams. Now, however, as Glance's lockscreen play gains ground, more and more smartphone manufacturers are coming to realize the potential for real differentiation power in its offering, according to industry executives.

Indeed, lockscreens and other non-app screens are turning out to be precious real estate for smartphone vendors and brands. "'Surfaces' exist even today, driven by 3 types of players — OEM-driven, OS-driven, and surface-first innovation driven," BCG wrote in a recent industry report. "Players like Glance are the most interesting of the lot w.r.t. innovation in AI deployed, to serve relevant content for a user every single time."

In the United States, the eponymous startup intends to team up with more telecom operators and brands such as CNN and the NBA, according to sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity for this story, since the terms are private. The Moto G Power smartphone released recently in the United States shipped with the Glance platform. A Glance spokesperson declined to comment.

This has been a project Glance has been looking to launch in the U.S. for at least two years. It's unclear why it didn't get there sooner.

Lockscreen technology from the Indian startup has already been successful for brand partners in terms of driving user engagement and app installations. In the nine-week partnership with the Indian streaming service JioCinema last year, over 100 million unique impressions delivered 9 million incremental app installs, according to a BCG report. The campaign also targeted dormant users, adding 12.5% more app opens and converting the install base into daily active users, the report added.