you greatly underestimate the difficulty of securing taxpayer financing.

At a first step the goal isn't directly securing funding but pushing the idea out to be public knowledge. Signing a petition has a lower barrier to entry then giving money for a kickstarter campaign.

It might very well be that after having invested month in the project no parliament shows any interest in funding it. I wouldn't expect to get results that fast.

It might very well be that through the process enough capable individuals get interested in the project and the correct action is to run a kickstarter in a year.

Maybe it could be that it makes sense for the Swiss effective altruism folks to push the project as a Swiss referendum.

There no strong commitment on long term strategy by starting with petitions.