Well, perhaps we can learn from how the startup ecosystem works?

For commercial ventures, you also have the same issue of incremental progress vs big breakthroughs that don't look like much until they are ready.

As far as I can tell, in the startup ecosystem the whole thing works by different investors (various angels and VCs and public markets etc), all having their own process to (attempt to) solve this tension.

There's beauty in competition. And no taxpayer money is wasted here. (Yes, there are government grants for startups in many parts of the world, but that's a different issue from angels evaluating would-be companies.)