OP: I think a response to your comment, really depends on how you define "basic research". Plenty of companies are still willing to invest in research that is more than one degree away from a new drug / plant strain / medical device / manufacturing process. The lab I work in has multiple scientists funded by a commercial license to a software package we develop and their work has ranged down to "new methods of parameter optimization." Now, are you defining it as restricted to "the structural mechanism by with pathway X is actuated in B. subtilis", "new proofs within string theory", or "investigations into the consistency of our fundamental logic systems"? In that case, the number of interested funders is definitely smaller, but these problems are still almost always linked at most a few more degrees away from tangible problems.