Apple was founded with the proceeds from selling a VW bus and an HP calculator. Maybe with inflation that's $20k in today's dollars. And they were building hardware.

If anything the cost of doing significant startups in the intervening years has declined, certainly for software, but also for hardware too. Apple had to build their own factories, even after they got venture funding. Now nobodies can hire factories on demand for your hardware.

$100k in the right hands would do a hell of a lot. However, the government isn't usually the best at determining the right hands.