Those $10M companies don't do research because they are research. The founders have an idea, they try it out, if it works they get acquired by a big company that doesn't do nearly as much of its own research as it used to because this is easier. Sometimes the big companies deliberately let groups of employees leave to try something, with IP and funding and legal indemnification, then buy them back if it works. So plenty of research actually occurs, and it's the big companies that don't need to be part of funding it.
Would that be so bad? If the small companies funded by other means (let's call that "venture capital") could grow into medium-sized fish themselves instead of being gobbled up by the big fish, that might actually be a healthier ecosystem.
