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. 

Peer-to-peer technology tends to get a bad rap in cable-technology circles. Historically, it’s been known as a bandwidth hog and an approach that applies major stress to the upstream path of the high-speed data network.

Teltoo, a startup based in Madrid, Spain, is looking to alter that conversation with a cable- and ISP-friendly approach to P2P that is designed to allow partners to manage how bandwidth is allocated while also driving much more scale into over-the-top video, particularly for the highly-viewed “tentpole” TV events that have wreaked havoc on some OTT video players, including a new breed of virtual MVPDs.

Teltoo’s approach is not related to BitTorrent and other P2P technologies that are out there today, company co-founder and CEO Pablo Hesse stressed.

“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, he said.

While most of today’s streaming platforms try to answer the scaling issue by deploying more servers and infrastructure, Teltoo’s P2P system strives for higher levels of availability and stability by allowing users to share bandwidth.

Under its architecture, 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, an open Internet standard that supports real-time communication and can run on HTML5, making it agnostic for the viewer and eliminating the need for separate plug-ins. Behind that is a server that represents the “brain” of the solution and manages the connections while a live stream is being delivered.

Teltoo is also designed to be agnostic in other ways, Hesse said, as it can support various encoders and digital rights management systems and products.

The result, the company claims, can help its partners offload of as much as 83% of bandwidth for those streams. In practice, that kind of number, of course, could be of keen interest to cable operators as well as programmers that are delivering more and more of their content over-the-top.

In fact, Teltoo’s approach is already getting some traction, as the startup is doing some work with Liberty Global as well as RTVE, Spain’s state broadcaster.

More recently, Teltoo, a company with founders who came from such companies as HP and NDS, was one of four startups selected by UpRamp’s “Fiterator” program. That initiative, run by the CableLabs-backed accelerator, enables its picks to get valuable exposure with cable operators alongside guaranteed commercial deals. In exchange, UpRamp gets a small equity stake (usually in the form of warrants) in the startups picked for the program.

Before it was recruited for the UpRamp program, Teltoo and its team went through the Virgin Media Accelerator held in London last year.

“We think there’s a real opportunity with TV everywhere and over-the-top [video] across our 60-odd members right now,” Scott Brown, UpRamp’s executive director, said.

Teltoo’s technology and product set “has gotten to the point that it’s applicable to the rest of the industry,” Brown added.

Brown also acknowledges that P2P typically has been a “third-rail conversation” with cable operators because of the asynchronous nature of their bandwidth (most deliver much more downstream capacity than upstream capacity).

“The reason why we think Teltoo has an advantage and opportunity to succeed in the cable space is the network management layer that they bring to this, where the MSO can actually control the level and quality and amount of up-bound bandwidth that’s used in this managed P2P.”

BitTorrent Live, a virtual MVPD that leans on the BitTorrent’s P2P platform, is shutting down in the “coming weeks,” Variety reported this week.

BitTorrent was not immediately available for comment, but an industry source confirmed that the team tied to the BitTorrent Live product has been let go. Variety said most of the 10-person team was expected to leave the company by the end of the week, and that the decision to fold the service stems from BitTorrent's inability to  raise money to spin Live into a separate company.

BitTorrent Live was introduced in May 2016 in concert with the INTX show in Boston.  The NCTA announced last fall that it was sunsetting the annual confab.

RELATED: NCTA 'Sunsetting' INTX

At last check, BitTorrent Live offers 15 free channels, including CGTN, Clubbing TV, FilmBox Arthouse, QVC, and Nasa TV UHD and Eleven Sports, and sells a couple of add-on news-focused packages that sell for $5 per month and $2 per month, respectively. It also offers Deutsche Welle (DW) for $5 per month.

BitTorrent Live arrived on the scene amid a swarm of virtual MVPDs that now includes Sling TV, DirecTV Now, YouTube TV, and fuboTV, a group that will soon be joined by Hulu.

BitTorrent Live was different in that it uses P2P, a technology that the company insisted would help it deliver live OTT services with broadcast-level  scale and sidestep some of the issues that have troubled other live streaming services.

BitTorrent Live added support for Android devices in January, complementing access on iOS devices, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV boxes, and browsers for Macs.

BitTorrent Live, the OTT TV service that relies on BitTorrent’s P2P platform, has broadened its platform reach with the recent launch of an app for Android devices.

BitTorrent Live’s initial app release for Android, available on Google Play, was issued on Jan. 26. At last check, it has been installed between 1,000 and 5,000 times.

BitTorrent Live was introduced in May 2016 at the INTX show in Boston, and is starting off as a free service. Channels offered on BitTorrent Live include One World Sports, France 24, QVC, Newsmax TV, Nasa TV (as well as Nasa’s 4K channel), Awe, FightBox HD, Fast&Fun Box HD, Newsy, Clubbing TV, FilmBox Arthouse, NHK World, One America News Network, Purssuit, RT HD, TWiT, and Open News TV.

RELATED: NCTA 'Sunsetting' INTX

BitTorrent Live also supports iOS devices, Apple TV,  Amazon Fire TV boxes and sticks, along with a beta version for browsers that run on Macs.

BitTorrent confirmed last fall that CFO Dipak Joshi had been named interim CEO, replacing former co-CEOs  Robert Delamar and Jeremy Johnson amid a broader reorg at the company.

Diving deeper into video services, BitTorrent has renamed its Bundle video platform BitTorrent Now alongside a plan to add apps for mobile devices and connected TV platforms.

The BitTorrent Now app launched on Google Play/Android today, with launches on iOS smartphones and tablets and Apple TV expected to follow soon.  

The additional platforms, the company has also added an option for publishers for ad-supported streaming. That option is launching as a pilot program prior to a wider rollout for all publishers.

In a move that could enhance its competitive positioning with content makers that use platforms such as YouTube and Vessel, BitTorrent Now is also adding a revenue share model for ad-based streaming that gives 70% of the take to the publisher. The option for transactional, direct pay downloads remains at 90/10t.

BitTorrent, which launched the original Bundle platform in 2013, also announced several pilot partners and content for the rechristened platform, including digital artist/rapper Yung Jake; Nashville folk singer Caleb Groh; Brooklyn-based alternative band Caveman; pop singer/songwriter Kerli; stand-up comedy series The Specials; and We Are San Marino, a documentary series about  “the worst team in FIFA.”  App partners in the film and video category include A24 (studio behind films such as Ex Machina and The Witch); Super Deluxe, a digital video network owned by Turner Broadcasting; Oscilloscope Labs, an indie film distribution company founded by the Adam Yauch, the late founding member of the Beastie Boys; and independent filmmaker Adam Bhala Lough, among others.

The reformed BitTorrent Now follows the recent debut of a BitTorrent Live, a “virtual” MVPD that is initially free and features live linear fare from programing partners such as AWE (formerly called WealthTV), One World Sports, Fightbox, Arthouse, Pursuit Channel, and Newsmax.

More detail about BitTorrent Now and the company’s video strategies will be featured in the June 27 issue of Next TV, a section that runs each week in Multichannel News and Broadcasting & Cable.