I thought about that, too. In the end, I came up with another description of the investors:

Well, I can't explain that one; here we don't want NSFW material!

So, I'll give a SFW version; I'll concentrate on information technology since biomedical is at least a little different:

(1) The investors are not very technical people. Often we're talking people with backgrounds in business development, marketing, routine software, former CEOs of startups that were largely non-technical, etc.

In contrast, the people in high end research university STEM field research know how to evaluate technical work, e.g., as reviewers and editors of good peer-reviewed journals. And if some paper is outside the field of some prof, then he will still know how to get the work reviewed by others, e.g., as the editor in chief of a journal gets the editors and reviewers to do the work.

Then, just think a little about what is involved in such peer-review and, then, begin to see how hopeless it would be for the usual investors to do such work. For the VCs, such technical review work is hopeless, and they don't do it.

Or for your description that they hear hype, that's not really the problem; instead, hype or not, "revolutionary" or not, they just ignore anything like research.

Or look at the bios of the VCs: Could hold a convention in an airplane wash room for all of them able to do or even able to direct peer-review of STEM field research.

(2) Evaluating research is something the VCs just won't do. Likely if one of their limited partners (LPs) caught one of their VCs using an evaluation of some research, then the LP would make sure that VC never got another dime, at least not from that LP.

(3) Sometimes VCs make money, and sometimes they don't. On average the don't make very much. In any case, they don't try to make money with the results of research.

(4) Mostly VCs don't evaluate the technical work. Instead, for early stage investing, their criteria are fairly simple: (A) Look for traction significantly high and growing rapidly. (B) Be sure the work is for a really large market. (C) Usually be sure the CEO and company HQ will be a short drive from the VC's offices. (D) Look for anything that is really wacko that would be a disqualification.

If (A)-(D) look good, then contact the CEO and argue that a check of equity funding would help their growth rate enough to more than pay for the stock dilution.

Have a term sheet that for the CEO is just onerous and puts the VCs in solid control, e.g., able to replace the CEO with someone loyal to the VC.

For seed funding, the VCs look at the product, although not at any technical internals, and try to estimate how the target users/customers would like the product.

For later stage funding, the VCs look mostly just at what an accountant does.

And for any VC funding, they look at what they know about the market: Commonly VCs claim to have "deep domain knowledge"; in terms of anything technical, that is a wild belly laugh; could break a bone slapping a thigh over that one. But they do have at least a cursory, from 10,000 feet up, view of the markets. So, they have heard of viral, social, local, mobile, sharing, photo apps, own both an iPhone and an Android, have used Google, Facebook, PInterest, SnapChat, InstaGram, and Uber, have heard about tablets, laptops, Windows, Apple, Linux, have seen articles on Apple's watch, have gotten a lot of pitch decks, attended a lot of pitches, and have listened for a few minutes each to a few.

For more, they know most of the other VCs on, say, Sand Hill Road, and attend morning what's hot pick-up seminars in coffee shops. For exits they know about acquihires, pitchforking, M&A, and maybe even IPOs.

While in some sense the VCs understand that the need to find companies that are new and exceptional, they look for patterns they have seen from the past, patterns that must reject most new and exceptional companies.

Really, they dream of a CEO of a company they funded calling them and telling them about the next SnapChat.

Sometimes they make money, and sometimes they don't, but that's what they do.

The VCs commonly say that their funding is not for everyone, and that is very true. While what the VCs do sometimes makes money, in no way are the VCs a broad source of innovation funding.

For revolutionary technology, the VCs couldn't care less. Actually, they would prefer that anything technical not be important -- the don't want to get involved in anything technical.