Germany: Leclanché Signs EUR 74.2m EU Innovation Fund Grant for Willstätt Battery Gigafactory

Mechanism

Leclanché SA (Swiss-listed, ETR:CH001627) was pre-selected in July 2025 as one of six pioneering EV battery-cell manufacturing projects for grant preparation under the EU Innovation Fund's dedicated 2024 Battery call (IF24 Battery, a EUR 1 billion sub-envelope of the broader EUR 3.4 billion IF24 call, launched 3 December 2024, closed 24 April 2025, 14 applications received). One of the six invited projects subsequently withdrew from grant preparation, leaving five — 46inEU (Poland), ACCEPT and AGATHE (France), NOVO One (Sweden), and WGF2G/Leclanché (Germany) — to sign formal Grant Agreements with CINEA, collectively worth EUR 643 million (part of a wider EUR 852 million envelope originally earmarked for the six). CINEA confirmed the signings on 10 November 2025; Leclanché's own disclosure (same date) put its individual grant at EUR 74.2 million, funding expansion of its existing Willstätt, Germany site to 2 GWh of annual lithium-ion cell capacity using a proprietary water-based, PFAS-free process. The company still needs to secure EUR 141.3 million in matching funds by a financial-close deadline of end-June 2026 for the grant to disburse.

GTA's state-act record (announced/implemented 2025-11-06) cites a EUR 72.5 million figure — likely an earlier public estimate ahead of the final signed amount (EUR 74.2m per both CINEA and Leclanché's own disclosure).

Downstream implications

• Non-dilutive capex de-risking: EUR 74.2m in EU grant funding materially

improves the financing picture for Leclanché's German gigafactory expansion, alongside the EUR 141.3m matching-funds requirement still to be secured by June 2026.

• EU battery-cell reshoring: adds to the EUR 643m IF24 Battery cohort

(Poland, France x2, Sweden, Germany) supporting a domestic alternative to Asian (mainly Chinese and Korean) lithium-ion cell supply — consistent with the wider Western industrial-policy stack (CRMA, EU Battery Regulation, Battery Booster Package).

• PFAS-free process validation: EU backing for Leclanché's water-based

manufacturing technology is a signal for the sector's move away from PFAS-based electrode processing ahead of the EU's broader PFAS restriction timeline.

Open questions

• Whether Leclanché secures the EUR 141.3m matching-funds package by the

end-June 2026 financial-close deadline; failure would leave the grant unexecuted despite the signed agreement.

• Whether any of the four other IF24 Battery grantees (46inEU, ACCEPT, AGATHE,

NOVO One) warrant separate company-level filings given their combined EUR 568.8m share of the EUR 643m total.