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.
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Romain Dillet was a Senior Reporter at TechCrunch until April 2025. He has written over 3,500 articles on technology and tech startups and has established himself as an influential voice on the European tech scene. He has a deep background in startups, AI, fintech, privacy, security, blockchain, mobile, social and media. With thirteen years of experience at TechCrunch, he’s one of the familiar faces of the tech publication that obsessively covers Silicon Valley and the tech industry — his career started at TechCrunch when he was 21. Based in Paris, many people in the tech ecosystem consider him as the most knowledgeable tech journalist in town. Romain likes to spot important startups before anyone else. He was the first person to cover Revolut, Alan and N26. He has written scoops on large acquisitions from Apple, Microsoft and Snap. When he’s not writing, Romain is also a developer — he understands how the tech behind the tech works. He also has a deep historical knowledge of the computer industry for the past 50 years. He knows how to connect the dots between innovations and the effect on the fabric of our society. Romain graduated from Emlyon Business School, a leading French business school specialized in entrepreneurship. He has helped several non-profit organizations, such as StartHer, an organization that promotes education and empowerment of women in technology, and Techfugees, an organization that empowers displaced people with technology.