How sad, maybe he was ahead of his time. Nowadays it seems like the institutions (mainly governments at all levels) are slowly but intently waking up to the idea of supporting new companies being valuable for society.
Agreed. At least in Germany it is totally feasible by now to get your seed funding from local community banks, e.g. Sparkassen. Federal and country banks are covering up to 80% of the lender's risk nowadays, so getting a 100k EUR to get started has become rather easy and fast. You need a business plan and a pitch and off you go. (For perspective, we are still talking a few months of paperwork, but it is a marked improvement over the get-out-of-my-office of only a decade ago.)
Sure, not all of the money is in grants, but you don't have to sign over half your company to some investor either just to get started.
that is the problem. you cannot get significant money to get anywhere. 100k is nothing to start a business. if you try to get 1MM you will personally be liable for 200k which is a huge deal in europe where salaries are low and it might ruin your finances for life and you cannot get rid of it. meanwhile banks play very risky in the market and when they screw up nobody is liable.
Somewhat relatedly there's the german federal SPRIND initiative (https://www.sprind.org/en/) with a great podcast (https://pca.st/podcast/4c1e6440-67ad-0139-341a-0acc26574db2), which Kai would be great to hear on.