Leonardo secures €64M from the 2025 European Defence Fund
What's the deal? Leonardo, the Italian defence and aerospace giant, secured €64M in grants from the 2025 European Defence FundDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → (EDF) cycle. The funding covers 15 projects — 11 capability development initiatives and four research efforts — selected from 18 proposals the company submitted.
The bulk of the money, €51M, goes toward development, with €13M earmarked for research. When subsidiaries are included, Leonardo's total share rises to roughly €84M.
Why now? The EDF's 2025 cycle allocated approximately €1B across 33 calls for proposals. From 410 submissions, the European CommissionDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → picked 57 projects involving 634 entities across 26 countries, plus Norway and Ukraine. The cycle placed a strong emphasis on SME participation — small and medium-sized enterprises represent 38% of participants.
Two standout Leonardo projects won funding. ASIMOV focuses on in-orbit operations and services for European defence, reinforcing the company's position in space. ANEMOS is a research initiative aimed at expanding European capabilities in information superiority through advanced radio communication solutions.
What could go wrong? Grant-funded defence projects often face long timelines, political shifts, and coordination challenges across multiple countries. With 634 entities involved in the broader EDF programme, managing collaboration at that scale is no small feat.
The signal: Leonardo's 83% proposal success rate (15 out of 18) in the EDF's 2025 cycle underscores how established defence primes can dominate public funding pipelines even as programmes explicitly court SME participation. With European defence budgets expanding and the EDF functioning as an investment fund designed to channel capital into homegrown capability, the competitive advantage of incumbents with cross-domain portfolios — from space to radio communications — is only likely to widen.
Read more: marketscreener.com
