KoalaLifter's EIC Accelerator Climbing Crane: Counting the Results

Leunamme Technology SL, the Navarra company behind the KoalaLifter brand, develops a crane that wraps collars around a wind turbine tower and climbs it, so that blades, gearboxes and other heavy parts can be swapped without the giant mobile cranes the industry normally hires. In the EIC Accelerator pilot cut-off of 8 January 2020 it was selected for blended finance, according to the European Commission's list of selected companies, which names it as "LEUNAMME" in Gorraiz with no partner companies. CORDIS records a Horizon 2020 grant of €2,030,163 towards a €2,900,233 project that ran from 1 June 2020 to 30 April 2023. The goal was to take the system from technology readiness level 6 to 9: extend the product range, validate and certify the machines, and prepare to sell them internationally "in only two years".

Three years after the project ended, the company is active and building a new technology centre. Its first product has not reached the market. In September 2025 its chief executive told Navarra Capital that the firm was "still immersed" in developing its first prototype, the KL-N35, which it planned to launch in 2026. No sale or certification of that machine has been announced since.

Where KoalaLifter Stands Now

The company is active. On 9 October 2025 it held the groundbreaking ceremony for a technology centre in the Egüés industrial park: a €3.2 million project with more than 2,000 m² for a test yard, an assembly hall and offices, due to open in summer 2026, according to the company. Navarra Capital put the investment at about €3 million, with a 1,000 m² hall fitted with 100-tonne overhead cranes and a 400 m² office building, and reported that manufacturing will be subcontracted to local firms. In August 2026 Navarra Capital reported that Joseba Pérez, founder of the consultancy LORTU, had joined KoalaLifter's board of directors.

The registers disagree on one point. Empresia shows the company as active, with accounts filed for 2020 to 2024 and a last BORME entry of 24 February 2025, when the registered office moved from Gorraiz to the Egüés industrial park. Infoempresa labels the company "Disuelta" (dissolved), but gives the same 24 February 2025 entry as its latest and lists no dissolution after it. Empresia's act list counts one dissolution and one reactivation of the registry sheet, the reactivation published in December 2016; the date of the dissolution entry is not shown on its free page. Given the 2025 and 2026 activity reported in the press, this article treats the company as active.

The Technology: A Crane That Hugs the Tower

Replacing a blade or a main nacelle component usually needs a high-capacity mobile crane, which has to be trucked to site, assembled and kept on standby until the wind drops. The CORDIS project report lists the drawbacks the company set out to remove: loads hanging over workers, few cranes able to serve towers above 120 m or nacelles above 100 tonnes, up to 40 trucks of transport, large crane pads that need tree clearing, and a wind limit of 8 m/s for blade lifts because the load hangs from a hook.

KoalaLifter's machine instead grips the tower with expandable friction collars and climbs it in two sections, like an inchworm: one section clamps, the other extends upwards and clamps, then the first is released and pulled up, as the company describes it. Because the component is held against the machine rather than swinging on a cable, the company claims operation in winds up to 25 m/s, transport on one standard 40-foot truck, and a single operator with a remote control. New Atlas compared it in November 2023 with the Lagerwey climbing crane, which weighs 270 tonnes, needs 11 trucks and relies on prepared connection points in the tower; KoalaLifter needs no tower modifications. None of the performance figures has been confirmed by an independent test report that could be found.

The product line has changed names and sizes. In 2020 the company listed the KL-B20 blade exchanger, the KL-N30 nacelle unit and the 150-tonne CASTOR erection system. Its website now lists the KL-N35 (35 tonnes, machine weight 29 tonnes), the KL-N80, the KL-Gorilla for erecting 1 to 4 MW turbines, and a KL-Offshore version placed on a barge with a wave-compensated platform. In September 2025 the CEO described the Gorilla as "still a very conceptual project" and said offshore development depended on talks with experienced offshore firms (Navarra Capital).

What the EIC Project Promised, and What the Record Shows

The project's second and final periodic report, covering June 2021 to April 2023, opens with "We are now in the equator of the project", a midpoint statement in a report that runs to the project's last day. It lists a redesigned magnetic robot with higher pulling capacity, a nacelle-component prototype being assembled, a stronger blade bracing system, a test simulator built "up to zero level", a prototype workshop, two newly granted patents and a fourfold increase in staff. CORDIS also lists two Spanish utility models, ES201931073 and ES202030659, for a friction strap collar and a component mounting device. The report mentions no product certification and no sale.

The press record matches. The full-scale KL-B10 blade prototype, for blades up to 10 tonnes, was shown climbing during a visit by Navarra's economy minister in March 2022, according to the Government of Navarra and Navarra Capital. In December 2021 the CEO had told Navarra Capital he expected to start selling the KL-B20 "in 2022". In September 2022 the company announced "the commercialization of the first product: KL-N30" at WindEnergy Hamburg (company news). Three years later the first machine headed for market was a new prototype, the KL-N35.

1. Extend the product range (B20, N30, CASTOR)Partly deliveredKL-B10 and KL-N30 prototypes built; erection system still conceptual in 2025 (Navarra Capital).
2. Validate and certify productsNot achievedNo product certification announced; the 2023 ISO 9001 label covers quality management (company news).
3. Reach TRL 9 and sell internationally within two yearsNot achievedFirst prototype still in development in September 2025, launch planned for 2026.
4. Protect the technologyDeliveredTwo patents granted during the project; two utility models on CORDIS.
5. Test infrastructureDeliveredTwo-tower test bench in Egüés, about €1M, operating from 2022.

Customers, Brazil and the Money

In January 2023 the company said it had set up a 50/50 joint venture in Brazil, KoalaLifter Transportes e Locações LTDA, trading as KoalaLifter do Brasil, and closed a first commercial agreement "until 2026" worth €44 million, under which it would supply nine craneless machines, two of them already being manufactured, according to Navarra Capital and Invest in Navarra. The Brazilian partner was not named. No delivery of a machine to Brazil, and no wind farm job carried out there, has been announced since. With the first commercial model still a prototype in September 2025, the nine-machine plan has not been met by its own deadline.

On funding, Navarra Capital and Energías Renovables reported in April 2020 that the award combined €2 million of grant with €4.1 million of equity. The company appears in the EIC Fund portfolio as "Koalalifter (LEUNAMME TECHNOLOGY)", on page 9 of the EIC Fund list of invested companies, so the equity was invested; the EIC does not publish the amount or date. CB Insights records a European Innovation Council round dated 21 September 2023 without an amount. In January 2023 the CEO spoke of an "important" capital increase, and the register shows two capital increases recorded in May 2023 that took nominal capital to €211,559 (Empresia). Whether these increases are the EIC Fund's investment cannot be confirmed from free sources. Empresia puts annual sales below €500,000, while Infoempresa gives less than €2 million and 10 to 49 employees; the filed accounts showing results, equity and debt are behind a paywall and could not be checked.

Headcount has not followed the plans. The company started in 2017 with three people and had 18 by December 2021, when the CEO forecast about 40 by 2025. It had 20 in January 2023 and "around twenty" in September 2025, when the CEO forecast 50% growth over two to three years after the new building opens.

Why It Matters for Europe

The European Commission's 2023 Wind Power Package includes a European Wind Power Action Plan built on six pillars, among them faster deployment through quicker permitting, better auction design and access to finance. Cheaper and faster component exchanges cut turbine downtime, and a crane that travels on one truck could open sites where large cranes cannot reach, as the company argued when it won the award. A European-built alternative to heavy-lift cranes fits that policy aim, and the Government of Navarra has called the company well placed in the region's renewables cluster (navarra.es). The policy case depends on machines in service. None has been reported yet.

The Verdict

KoalaLifter was not asked for comment for this article. It is based on public records and published statements, linked throughout.