[enra]

As far as I know there is no "favoritism" for goverment grants . Like any fundraising, there are those are better / more experienced with it and those who aren't.

But the real problem is that the government officials are not investors. Steve Blank said this well on his visit:

Ironically one of the things that’s holding back the Finnish cluster is Tekes, the government organization for financing research, development and innovation in Finland. It’s hard enough to pick which existing companies with known business models to aid. Yet Tekes does that and is trying to act like a government-run Venture Capital firm. At Tekes, government employees (and their hired consultants) – with no equity, no risk or reward, no startup or venture capital experience – try to pick startup winners and losers.

http://steveblank.com/2011/10/07/the-helsinki-spring/