I imagine Kickstarter turned them down because of potential liability if something goes wrong. Replacing food with chemicals makes sense to scientists and engineers, but I imagine this has the potential to be lawsuit-heavy for the average people out there (my back aches, must be the Soylent).
Edit: specifically, these two guidelines:
- Projects cannot offer financial, medical, or health advice.
- No tobacco, drugs, and drug paraphernalia; energy food and drinks; or nutritional supplements.
Kickstarter is for creative projects with a finite ending point. For example, you can't launch a website and raise funds on Kickstarter so you can pay engineers -- it needs to be a concrete project, not "I want to start a company." The same is true for Soylent, it isn't framed as a project.
Edit: specifically, these two guidelines:
- Projects cannot offer financial, medical, or health advice.
- No tobacco, drugs, and drug paraphernalia; energy food and drinks; or nutritional supplements.