Many of those Kickstarters also had or claimed to have prototypes.
Let's use your example. I can buy a small reusable toy rocket at a hobby store. It will fly up a few hundred feet and come down by parachute in one piece. I can build a somewhat bigger one from pieces as well, there's college competitions around such things. That provides about 0.0001% of the work, skills, etc. needed to build one that can reach orbit and carry an actual payload. In other words, there is basically no relation between the small scale prototype and the actual useful product. A million is also a uselessly small amount of money for such a thing. SpaceX probably went through at least $200 million before it's first Falcon 1 flight.
edit: Btw, parachute approach doesn't scale but it works in a small scale prototype. So you gain little knowledge of full scale re-usability from such prototype. However, you've said minimal bureaucracy so no system for doing such in-depth due diligence.
Well, that would function as a seed round. And having a breakthrough would mean it’s proprietary. Aka you didn’t buy it at the hobby store. If you have a prototype demonstrating a breakthrough that’s enough imo. I can only recall Oculus from kickstarter and it has been fairly successful
>And having a breakthrough would mean it’s proprietary. Aka you didn’t buy it at the hobby store.
Now define a system that will verify that the technology is proprietary and not just assembled off the shelf components. Keep in mind that you can also have a breakthrough system that is made of existing components. And do it with minimal bureaucracy. Keep in mind that the person applying may honestly believe they have a breakthrough technology made from existing parts even if it's not.
Let's use your example. I can buy a small reusable toy rocket at a hobby store. It will fly up a few hundred feet and come down by parachute in one piece. I can build a somewhat bigger one from pieces as well, there's college competitions around such things. That provides about 0.0001% of the work, skills, etc. needed to build one that can reach orbit and carry an actual payload. In other words, there is basically no relation between the small scale prototype and the actual useful product. A million is also a uselessly small amount of money for such a thing. SpaceX probably went through at least $200 million before it's first Falcon 1 flight.
edit: Btw, parachute approach doesn't scale but it works in a small scale prototype. So you gain little knowledge of full scale re-usability from such prototype. However, you've said minimal bureaucracy so no system for doing such in-depth due diligence.