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With hopes of finding a way to exploit the power of peer-to-peer rather than just hindering it, Comcast has invested an undisclosed sum in P2P video content delivery start-up GridNetworks. The investment was part of GridNetworks’ first-round financing of $9.5 million, which was led by Panorama Capital and included participating from Cisco Systems.

With the funding, GridNetworks is supposedly in talks about potential collaboration to use their technology in Comcast and other ISPs’ networks for delivering HD and other video content – though no specific agreement has been reached as of yet. Comcast has become very interested in peer-to-peer technology after the company was accused last year of blocking or slowing down peer-to-peer traffic. This marks yet another move in that direction, following collaboration with Pando and BitTorrent as part of its “protocol-agnostic” means of managing bandwidth.