Om Malik and Daniel Primack both confirm the first institutional round for (in) famous BitTorrent:

"Om Malik heard a rumor last month that P2P digital content company BitTorrent had raised some venture dollars from DCM-Doll Capital Management. BitTorrent poobah Ashwin Navin, however, said that while his company would be "opportunistic," it had not taken any outside money. Well, opportunity has now formally knocked, BitTorrent answered, invited it in and served it dinner. According to a regulatory filing dated September 12, the company has raised $8.75 million in a Series A funding round led by. yup, DCM-Doll Capital Management."

"All he has to do is mention Bram Cohen and Bit Torrent. In the ever mutating peer-to-peer networking universe, Cohen is like New York Yankees' short stop, Derek Jeter. In less than two years, their client software which allows users to share big files such as video clips with remarkable ease through smart technology, has been downloaded nearly 45 million times. That's about 100 million less than claims by Skype folks, but its only getting started. In less than a year, Bit Torrent has gone from being an illegal file sharing network to being the network that is being used to distribute legal content. "We are now in a position to promote free, or paid content," says Navin. And that explains why MPAA and RIAA are both responding nicely to Bit Torrent's overtures."

The most amazing thing for me is has well BitTorrent manages the transition to provide a legal alternative to the hard fought P2P market. It is clear that P2P technology is one fixed column on tomorrow's broadband architecture but building a company that was not sued over to death and still had wide adoption with P2P users seemed far fetched. BitTorrent is very accepted with users and seems to get traction with content publishers - I say sweet spot!