MiMedia CEO explains why the Downtown Brooklyn company just banked $15 million

Downtown Brooklyn-based MiMedia, Inc. scored a $15 million Series C funding round, the company announced Thursday.

MiMedia is like a cross between Dropbox and Facebook. It’s a personal cloud, like iCloud or Dropbox, but with much more attention paid to the user experience. With a MiDrive, the company’s signature product, users are able to make digital scrapbooks out of their photos and share them with friends, while having the photos backed up in their original size and quality. We talked to MiMedia founder and CEO Chris Giordano about the company and why he’s excited for the future.

“You’ve never seen anything like it, it’s truly a next-gen platform,” Giordano said. “It’s a classic example of ‘built for the consumer, by the consumer.’ [I got] married, had my first child, and my digital footprint when from 60 GB to 600. My digital life was kind of a mess and when I looked at the landscape, I thought the consumer was being underserved.”

Mom knows safety. That's why Moms love MiMedia – the safe way to store #videos and #photos: https://t.co/BJxS7V1iXB pic.twitter.com/HqcjoB0T8M

— MiMedia (@MiMedia) January 13, 2016

Giordano said that in contrast to Dropbox, the MiDrive will be a much more beautiful and intuitive product. In contrast to Google’s various Drive products, it’s one, singular, integrated place, and also isn’t mining your data for money. And in contrast to iCloud, people will know what it’s for.
“I contend that like 90 percent of iCloud users don’t know that they’re using iCloud because they just want a quick yes and don’t even know what they’re using,” Giordano said. The MiDrive is also device- and operating system-agnostic, so people won’t be locked into using whatever product is on their phone.

The company is also excited about building their business in the borough.

“San Francisco can have their Dropbox, we’re really proud to be doing this in New York,” Giordano said. “I moved the company here for a very specific reason. I saw what was happening, I saw the Silicon Alley thing.”

Giordano does not come from the tech world. He spent the last 11 years on Wall Street, four of them at Merrill Lynch, doing investment banking and equity research in the telecom sector, and seven years working in private equity.

Now he’s ready to run his own company. MiMedia has raised $35 million in total since its inception, in 2009. It has 20 full-time employees in Brooklyn and another 30 technical workers abroad.

“I love the scrappiness of Brooklyn, and we just wanted to be part of that story,” he said.