..there always has been plenty of investors.. especially since the blair witch project . the real issue is that there is not really that many good indy films that deserve to actually be widely distributed. :-/
..but these days, the real money makers are either low budget indies that make big ROI or big budget action that makes decent ROI over what was spent to make it. all the middle of the road films dont make too much over their own production budget anymore. so there is more of an eye on the indy market than before i would say.