According to a fresh new study released by Outlier Ventures, a European economic research outfit, venture capital investments into various blockchain based projects have increased by a staggering 316% during the course of this year.

The aforementioned report (called “Q3: State of Blockchains”) states that VC firms have been very active across all of the funding stages for various blockchain projects. Not only that, it is estimated that a total of 119 deals in Q3 of 2018 alone have been facilitated in this regard.

Another point worth noting is that despite dropping interest levels from retailers in this sector, it has been found that more and more VC firms are looking to back well-developed blockchain products as time progresses. This is made evident by the fact that all through this year, a total of $2.85 billion has been injected by VCs into the crypto sphere. The aforementioned figure represents an all-time high value (in this regard) and even showcases a 316 percent increase in total investment input when compared to 2017’s $900 million.

Speaking on this issue, a Founding Partner at Outlier Ventures by the name of Aron Van Ammers was quoted as saying:

“As we see the focus of early stage investment into tokens shift away from tech-savvy retail investors toward VCs, hedge funds and ultimately larger institutional investors, we’re seeing a large growth in new businesses and services enabling the larger institutional investors to enter the space.”

Lastly, another interesting point bought out by the report is that the overall money raised by ICO projects has dropped substantially this year (-74 percent since Q1 to be exact). Also, during Q3 2018, various ICOs were able to raise $1 billion in funding (however, the money raised through September’s was just $150 million).

Talking about this drop in interest towards such crypto offerings, Eden Dhaliwal, an executive for Outlier Ventures said that:

“This quarter saw significant negative sentiment around utility tokens from an investment standpoint. Many investors have grown frustrated over regulation and exasperated over valuations of tokenized networks. This represents a new cycle back towards equity based blockchain investments until the crypto community makes advances in validating tokens as a new asset class with viable business models.”

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