[jmnicolas]

Just by funding established projects.

In your example the new NoSQL store should prove itself before being funded.

[dyeje]

How does it prove itself?

[jmnicolas]

By being here in at least 5 years and being actively used by a non trivial number of companies / organizations.

Think of all the javascript frameworks appearing nowadays. How many will have a significant user base in 5 years or even still be maintained ?

You should get gov money once you are a reference in your field. Postgres and OpenSSL certainly are.