Horizon 2020 is giving out 80 billion Euros between 2014 and 2020. That's a big amount roughly $15 billion per year. In the US, private venture capital being in

Horizon 2020 is giving out 80 billion Euros between 2014 and 2020. That's a big amount roughly $15 billion per year. In the US, private venture capital being invested is around $4 billion, per month, or $48 billion per year. Plus, there's the baggage of accepting public money. In private money, your failures are fairly private. Its not front page news when Kleiner Perkins put $30 million into a failure. But Solyndra failing was a huge deal in the US. In Canada, where I grew up, public money going into failures is always newsworthy. When 50 million Euros of that 80 billion goes to some fraudster, it'll put the whole program at risk. That's why its difficult for countries to legislate innovation. There's a large party of people who are rewarded when those investments fail.