I find that 2018 and 2019 is just heavily moving away from the open public ico's and seems to have a huge shift toward institutional and private sales which i think is good for the project but really does shrink the chances for the small guys getting into big projects at good rates early
Institutional investors invest other peoples money in most cases. So they don't consider it as high risk. But small investors are very different and they are putting their hard earned money.
Institutional investors are individuals or cooperate organisations who manages investment portfolio for an organisation or group of individuals. Institutional investors are much more risk conscious and carry out intensive research before making an substantial investment.