The latest edition of KPMG and CB Insights report “Pulse of Fintech Q3’16” shows a dip in investments going into blockchain and digital currency startups.



The report anticipates that in the forthcoming quarters, artificial intelligence (AI) will gain more investor attention in addition to RegTech, InsurTech and data and analytics. It also expects fintech areas that have emerged over the past year, particularly blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT), may be scrutinized more as investors assess when and if investments will deliver returns.



“Related companies looking for additional funding will need to show real results in order to gain investment”, it said.



According to the report, the blockchain and bitcoin investment activity dropped to $87 million in the third quarter of 2016, from $119 million in the second quarter. The investment peaked in the first quarter when the total investment stood at $153 million.



The number of deals has also declined from 22 in Q1, to 17 in Q3 and 13 in Q3. The top deals in the bitcoin and blockchain space include Ripple with $55 million series B funding, Coinbase with $10.5 million series C-II funding and Brave Software with $4.5 million venture capital funding.



The report said that blockchain technology received a significant amount of attention from VC investors over the past year in North America, with many large financial institutions in the US investing in blockchain-based companies, announcing partnerships to examine blockchain’s potential or moving ahead with proof-of-concept activities. However, it noted that despite all the efforts, the level of blockchain adoption remains limited and that investors are now becoming worried about the results.



“To-date, however, the ability to move blockchain from proof-of-concept to adoption and production has been minimal. While the market is still giving blockchain companies plenty of room to prove themselves, investors are also becoming more concerned about results”, the report said. “Over the next year, investors will make more rationale assessments of where the main use cases associated with fintech are and how long it will be before they are implementable.”