So far major funding has only gone to highly promoted ventures, from Magenn and KiteGen, to Makani and Ampyx. I support the idea that this money helps investors soonest see predicted weaknesses in high-complexity AWE, or AWE by non-aviation culture.
I walked away from GoogleX’s failed Moonshot Factory to be blessed so far with micro-funding from many sources, and look forward to more. High-complexity developers really do need more funding than low-complexity players, based on a higher capital cost structure for complex AWES.
Let low-complexity evolve hungry, to win the AWE race most cost-effectively. My choice would be for ALL serious AWE players to get modest funding.