Streamroot raises $3.2 million for its peer-to-peer video delivery technology

French startup Streamroot just raised $3.2 million from Partech Ventures, Techstars Venture Capital Fund, Verizon Ventures* and R/GA. The company is taking advantage of WebRTC to make video streaming much cheaper.

When you’re watching a video on YouTube or Netflix, those companies send a video file to your device from their servers. It’s a straightforward, one-way transaction between a data center and your device. That’s why tech companies spend a ton of money on bandwidth because video files are heavy.

Streamroot wants to change this model by adding a peer-to-peer layer. Companies like Dailymotion, Canal+, Eurosport and Russia Today have been using Streamroot’s technology so that not all videos come from their servers.

Let’s say you’re watching Taylor Swift’s latest music video on Dailymotion. As Taylor Swift is quite popular, chances are a bunch of people are already watching her video at the same time. Streamroot is going to download part or all of her video from another user directly.

So Dailymotion can deliver 2 different views without sending the file twice from its own servers. It works particularly well for big spikes of traffic on the same video.

The best part is that it’s completely transparent for the user. You don’t have to install anything as most modern web browsers support WebRTC’s most advanced features on desktop and mobile. And if you’re watching an obscure video, Streamroot will just tell your browser to look for the video on a traditional server. It’s the best of both worlds

Streamroot now powers 400 million video sessions per month. The company says that 50 to 80 percent of customers’ traffic now takes advantage of this distributed infrastructure.

• Disclosure: Verizon owns Oath, which owns TechCrunch.