[new299]

My guess is that a part of the issue is that VCs can understand WhatsApp. They feel like that can assess it's worth, associated risk, and come up with a valuation independently.

With science based startups the partner at a VC can't easily make an independent assessment. They have to rely on specialists to do tech D&D and they rarely trust them completely. So they shy away from those deals, or they factor the risk into their valuations.

This behavior somewhat ironically can make these investments higher risk. There is a degree to which fund raising at a lower level makes a company a higher risk, because they have less money to work with and can't afford to make mistakes. (the converse is also somewhat true).