Ask HN: Your thoughts on subsidies

I'm mentoring a startup who got their "seed funding" from a EU grant/subsidy and I was wondering what your thoughts are on this kind of situation. It's "free money" (no dilution) but also comes with all kinds of other strings attached (most notably reporting). Maybe I'm too cynical but I've come to consider subsidies a poison that tends to turn promising startups into risk-averse slow-moving entities more concerned with "keeping up appearances" than anything else. What do you think?