Portugal's First NATO DIANA Acceleration Node Goes Live at Instituto Pedro Nunes in Coimbra — Connect Robotics and Neuraspace Anchor a Six-to-Twelve-Startup 2027 Cohort

Portugal switched on its first NATO DIANA (Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic) acceleration node in Coimbra under the joint operational management of idD Portugal Defence (the state-owned defence industries company) and Instituto Pedro Nunes (IPN, Pedro Nunes Institute), the long-running deep-tech incubator that sits next to the Universidade de Coimbra. The Portuguese site is part of a 17-accelerator NATO-wide network spanning member states including Spain and Italy, and slots into the Alliance's broader play to compress the development cycle for emerging and disruptive defence-relevant technologies inside the western defence industrial base.

Two Portuguese companies are the first national entries into the DIANA acceleration cohort: Connect Robotics, the Aveiro-headquartered drone-logistics specialist, and Neuraspace, the Coimbra-born space-traffic-management software firm. Both were selected through the NATO-level competitive call alongside roughly 150 companies across the Alliance, and join the cohort with access to NATO DIANA's full programme stack — €100,000 in initial investment, an additional €300,000 available in a growth phase, and entry into a network of more than 200 test centres plus connections to NATO's Innovation Fund and venture capital channels.

IPN's operational role gives the Coimbra node a defined intake. The institute expects to host six to twelve companies in the next acceleration cycle running January through June 2027, with the technology focus aligned to the DIANA-wide priority list: artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, space-based applications, communications, cybersecurity, new materials, biological sciences, and critical infrastructure protection. The dual-use framing — civilian applicability alongside defence relevance — is structural to the DIANA model and aligns the Portuguese node with IPN's existing deep-tech incubation track record, including the Connect Robotics and Neuraspace early-stage routes that pre-dated the NATO call.

idD Portugal Defence president Ricardo Pinheiro Alves used the launch to underline the procurement-channel implication. "Military procurement operates within NATO's framework, not the EU's," Pinheiro Alves said — a line that crystallises the strategic shift Portuguese defence-tech startups are being asked to make. The European Union's defence-industrial programmes, including European Defence Fund and ASAP (Act in Support of Ammunition Production), have been the dominant source of EU-level project funding for the sector, but ultimate sales gateways in the defence procurement market sit inside NATO's standardisation and capability-target architecture. Aligning Portuguese acceleration with NATO's structures gives selected startups a direct line into NATO procurement engagement that EU-only acceleration would not deliver.

The Coimbra node also opens a complementary national track. idD Portugal Defence and IPN are developing a parallel "national DIANA" programme designed to absorb additional Portuguese defence-technology companies beyond those that clear the NATO-level call, with the same accelerator infrastructure and similar mentor-network access but funded through national defence-industry instruments. The national track is intended to deepen the Portuguese pipeline so that a higher share of NATO-call applicants in subsequent rounds arrive with prior structured-acceleration experience.

The Portuguese alignment with NATO innovation channels has been incremental but visible. Earlier in June, the Capítulo da Defesa Nacional debate around Portugal's 2013 Conceito Estratégico de Defesa Nacional (CEDN, National Defence Strategic Concept) underlined the ageing of the strategic doctrine framework, while the Government's defence-spending architecture was set against the new NATO 2% — and prospective 3.5% — capability-target horizon. The NATO DIANA node activation gives the Portuguese defence-industrial policy a concrete instrument inside that wider debate, with Coimbra and IPN as the operational handle.

What This Means for Expats and Residents

• Coimbra becomes a defence-tech hub address: Instituto Pedro Nunes, already a Coimbra-based incubator with a strong deep-tech track record across earlier cohorts, gains an explicitly defence-aligned acceleration mandate. The January-June 2027 cycle is the first window where Portuguese deep-tech founders can apply through the national node into a NATO-aligned programme without routing through Madrid, Rome or other Alliance-side accelerators.
• The €100,000 plus €300,000 funding envelope is the headline number: Initial investment of €100,000 with a further €300,000 available in growth phase — plus access to more than 200 test centres and NATO Innovation Fund connections — sets the baseline financial proposition for selected companies. This is non-dilutive at the entry tier and structured under NATO programme rules.
• Connect Robotics and Neuraspace set the early reference points: The two confirmed Portuguese DIANA cohort entries are the visible benchmarks for the kinds of companies the Coimbra node will be working with. Drone logistics (Connect Robotics) and space-traffic management software (Neuraspace) are both dual-use technologies with mature non-defence customer bases — the DIANA structure is designed to scale exactly that profile into defence channels.
• Strategic procurement re-routing is the policy thesis: Pinheiro Alves's NATO-not-EU procurement line is the load-bearing strategic call. Portuguese defence-tech founders who have been mapping European Defence Fund grants and ASAP calls now also need to map NATO procurement and the DIANA pipeline if they intend to scale into defence revenue rather than purely civilian dual-use sales.

The Coimbra node goes live as the wider Portuguese defence-industrial debate moves through the CEDN modernisation cycle and the NATO 3.5% capability-target conversation. Putting IPN on the operational map of Alliance-wide acceleration gives Portuguese deep-tech startups a structured entry point and pulls Coimbra into the NATO innovation grid alongside the 17 sister sites running the same playbook across the Alliance.