Ask HN: US government funds a lot of tech research, why don’t startups use it?

Some people know about SBIRs (small business innovative research grants), through which federal government gives away more than $1B of R&D funding to small businesses. I know government grant process can be very cumbersome but so is trying to raise VC money (especially outside of SV). I am noticing more startups (e.g. Palantir, Anduril) starting off of government opportunities, but they seem very rare.

Source: news.ycombinator.com