Basically the whole post has one theme: The more you have already done on the project, the less risk. That's not wrong, but it's weak because there is a much better way.

E.g., as a teenager, I looked around the garage and saw an old lawn mower engine, other raw materials, and tools and built a go cart. I drove it around the neighborhood. So, according to the OP, I was well on the way, low risk, to beating Ford? Nope!

What was missing for beating Ford? Sure, some larger planning that, to beat Ford, could, should have been done at the beginning. Nearly all of that planning should have been well before cutting any metal and well before any of the steps in the OP.

So, net, what the OP is missing is any reasonable conception of good planning.

It is as if the OP believes that any planning is just so much hot air, pie in the sky, BS, with a dime still won't cover a 10 cent cup of coffee. I'd say that following the steps of less risk in the OP without good, initial planning is hot air, ....

Can good planning work? Yup. Maybe what the OP and Susa Ventures has in mind doesn't use much in planning, but Boeing, Lockheed, Intel, ... make good use of planning.

E.g., Lockheed planned the SR-71 as in

http://iliketowastemytime.com/sites/default/files/sr71_black...

The project was approved basically with all the work just on paper, that is, with none of the risk reducing project steps in the OP. And the project was fully successful -- Mach 3 speed, 80,000 feet altitude, 2000 mile range without refuling. Flew over hostile airspace taking pictures for years and never got shot down. Why not shot down? Planning: Or, you are on the ground and an SR-71 is about to fly over you and take your picture, again, Mach 3, 80,000 feet. So, how do you get an airplane or missile up there in time? Well, in simple terms, with what was available then, you couldn't. So, you didn't, and the SR-71 never got shot down. And this situation was clear just from the planning on paper before any metal cutting.

Really, what was important for having a low risk project was the planning on paper, before any metal cutting, and not the progress steps as in the OP.

And for serious projects, this situation on planning is quite general for, say, large dams, long bridges, tall buildings, deep tunnels, huge ships and airplanes, etc. Nearly all the important work that reduces risk is in the initial planing and engineering essentially all just on paper. The OP totally neglects this point.

War story example. Early in my career, I was writing applied math software in a group at the JHU/APL, that is, Johns Hopkins University Applied Phsics Lab in Maryland. The group was doing the orbit determination software for the Navy's version of GPS, right, which was working several years before GPS by the USAF. Yes, the project was for the navigation needed by the US Navy missile firing submarines. Well, daily have to update the orbits of the satellites; so, there is some good software there.

Actually in that group I was working on passive sonar software (another interest of the US Navy), but I did learn the stories of how the Navy got their version of GPS. It was basically a back of the envelope thing-y by some good physics people. That done, there wasn't much risk. Then no doubt there was a full project proposal that was peer-reviewed and reviewed otherwise. Now, presto, bingo, with just that paper, basically have a low risk project with the rest, including the rockets to launch the satellites, the software, the satellites themselves, etc. all low risk. But according to the OP, before the satellites and rockets are built, flown, etc., have high risk project. Nope. And according to the OP, since no one had yet done a GPS, it was a high risk project. Nope.

Basically the OP wants to have full confidence in a project essentially only when it is done. Okay, but that's no help in risk removal early on for either the project people or any investor. In fact, with good planning, even just on paper, can remove nearly all the risk just at the beginning.

In the commercial world, also need to have happy users/customers; how to plan for that? Pick a problem where the first good or a much better solution is a must have for enough users/customers to have a low risk project.

The core problem of the OP is that they don't know how to evaluate project plans just on paper and, that way, get low risk projects. Thankfully for US national security, the US DoD very much does know how to do that, that is, work with plans on paper and, then, have the rest low risk. So do Boeing, Intel, etc.

For more, the OP seems to be from a group, Susa, that believes that in information technology the technology is essentially just routine software development and anything else about technology or planning is ignored. Well, there was some software in the GPS project, but there was also a lot more that made the project very valuable; the software part alone was basically low risk; and with the good, initial planning just on paper, the rest of the project was low risk. Then, the OP is ignoring projects that would be "very valuable" because that value is not just in routine software.

Then, with some irony, the OP wants to invest in projects that have little promise of much value even when the software is done, and that's not low risk investing!

Indeed, as in

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/02/venture-capital-returns.html...

and

http://www.kauffman.org/newsroom/2012/07/institutional-limit...

the average ROI of Silicon Valley information technology investing is low. It does appear that what the OP describes is basically how such investors look at projects. Thankfully for US national security, tall buildings, huge airplanes, etc., such investors are not involved.