Verizon Ventures is among a group that recently plowed $3.2 million into Streamroot, a startup that’s focused on a P2P-style “distributed” OTT video delivery platform that offers an alternative to more traditional server-based content delivery networks.
The Verizon VC was joined in the round by Partech Ventures, Techstars Venture Capital Fund, and R/GA.
Founded in 2013, France-based Streamroot has raised $6 million so far and counts Dailymotion, Canal+, Eurosport (part of the Discovery Communications group), and Russia Today as announced customers. The company estimates that it’s powering more than 400 million video session per month, and that 50% to 80% of its customers’ traffic is being delivered through its distributed architecture.
Streamroot sells a WebRTC-based P2P delivery system, holding that the efficiency of its approach can help online video achieve massive scale. Per its site, it offers flat-fee pricing that’s “akin to traditional satellite or television broadcasting.”
Others in the service provider sector are keeping a close eye on friendly forms of P2P.
Of recent note, UpRamp, the CableLabs-backed accelerator program, recently added Teltoo, a P2P tech startup, to a group that will be part of its “Fiterator” program.
RELATED: Four Startups Picked for CableLabs-Backed UpRamp Program
Teltoo, based in Madrid, Spain, is also looking to bring managed P2P into the streaming conversation with a scalable, ISP-friendly approach for delivering OTT at scale. Teltoo implements a small piece of JavaScript on its partner’s streaming video player for everything from laptops, to mobile devices and even set-top boxes. In tandem, those players are connected using WebRTC. Behind that is a server that represents the “brain” of the solution and manages the connections while a live stream is being delivered.
“This is a technology for cable operators and traditional broadcasters to help them to distribute streams over the internet,” and do so without buffering or other types of technical interruptions, company co-founder and CEO Pablo Hesse explained in this recent interview (subscription required).
Liberty Global and RTVE, Spain’s state broadcaster, are among Teltoo's known customers.
