Mylio, developer of the world's first internet file system over a personal mesh network offerings, including the photo organizing app that Outdoor Photographer said "may change your life," has secured funding that will propel the expansion of more privacy-centric offerings, and is poised to shake up the options consumers have for guarding and protecting their digital files. The $25 million cash infusion, secured through a joint-venture agreement with an undisclosed Chinese company, will fuel the development of new products. This company will also serve as a distribution partner, opening the door for Mylio to use the large, engaged, mobile-centric Chinese market as a test bed for continued innovation.

The Mylio platform is the first internet file system over a personal mesh network platform in the world. The Mylio photo app - the first to run on the company's platform - has paved the way for additional applications that will provide a new choice for consumers who value privacy, and control over their digital files. Mylio founder and CEO David Vaskevitch, says, "The infrastructure we've built for mesh network syncing includes multi-device replication, communication, and facial recognition. It also includes an artificial intelligence (AI) system that will be foundational to a multitude of new apps. We're excited to explore these ideas with strategic, well-positioned partners, who can provide Mylio with the market scale to rapidly acid test new ideas. The size of the Chinese mainland market, we believe, will add rocket fuel to our innovations."

As part of the agreement, a Mylio R&D facility will be set up in the Hengqin New Area, one of the most recent Special Economic Zones created by the Chinese government for international collaboration and innovation. This facility will be used to develop new AI and machine learning products specific to Hengqin, as well as extend the Mylio platform and app to the Chinese mainland market.

Artificial Intelligence and the Rise of a New Silicon Valley
The Chinese government has announced plans to be the world leader in AI technologies, with Hengqin as the hub -- a Sino-version of Silicon Valley. Just as China's first Special Economic Zone - Shenzhen - is known as a global center for tech manufacturing (notably for Apple), Hengqin will specialize in software, with Mylio as its first development partner.

Mylio was selected because of its thought leadership, and head start in personal, distributed computing - the opposite of centralized, cloud computing. Cloud services like Office and Creative Cloud were designed for personal computers. However, while 1.3 billion people today have computers, 5.4 billion have mobile phones, each effectively a pocket supercomputer. Mylio is betting that the next chapter in computing will include simple, powerful productivity tools that work equally well on desktops and mobile devices, without the need for cloud storage - using instead a personal, secure and private mesh network, like the Mylio photo app does today. Because the AI systems used for face and object recognition on the Mylio photo app run on the device -- instead of the cloud -- users also benefit from increased convenience, speed, and efficiency.

As China is a mobile-native country, this strategic partnership positions Mylio on the ground floor for testing and bringing to market the very first globally-accessible, mobile-native products for creating and organizing files.

The Mylio platform and photo app can be downloaded at www.mylio.com, through the Apple App Store, or Android Play Store. The Mylio photo app supports personal computers running OSX 10.9 or later, Windows 7 SP1 or later, iPads, iPhones and iPod Touch running iOS 7 or later, and Android tablets and phones running KitKat 4.4 or later.

About Mylio
Privately-held Mylio, headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, was founded in 2012 by former Microsoft CTO David Vaskevitch, to pioneer the development of private, personal mesh networks, which protect personal privacy by making an internet or cloud connection completely optional. The company's first mesh network offering is the Mylio photo app, a multi-device, peer-to-peer, platform-agnostic tool to organize, manage, and protect digital photos and other files.