The U.K’s technology development department, Innovate UK, is increasing its support for technologies which are driven by blockchain from what it had announced on Jan. 22.

The country’s nondepartmental public office has announced that it intends to invest a £19 million ($26.6 million) in projects that will lead to production of new products or service in the sectors of upcoming and enabling technologies. These include sectors that use distributed ledgers. The agency further announced that it offer an additional £12 million ($16.8 million) for businesses and companies that recruit graduates to help in developing their project.

Respondents have been given up to March 28, 2018 to send their proposal. The proposals have to be run by a research or a business and technology group. The scope of project has to be at least £35,000 and must be at least three months old, but the project can go on to three years and a total cost of up to £2 million. As part of the of the eligibility and selection criteria is that businesses must be in a position to raise up to 70 percent of the total costs on their own.

This new announcement is one of the latest moves by Innovate UK which is known for looking for and supporting new projects and idea in the blockchain field. In July 2017, the agency was seeking pitches from groups that could implement blockchain technology into upcoming health technologies.

Before that, the agency awarded a total of £248,000 to a blockchain startup that was developing cross-border financial transaction software.in the announce,ent, the agency said projects which focus on distributed ledger technology are competing for the funding against other sections like artificial intelligence, machine learning and virtual reality.

In other developments, politicians from all over the world who are attending this year’s edition of the  World Economic Forum in Davos have called for more regulations on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin so as to avoid being used for criminal businesses. While speaking to Bloomberg, U.K Prime Minister Theresa May said there is need to put these technologies into close watch so to avoid being used for criminal activities.