Leonardo DRS Buys the American Mission-Software Firm Raft for USD 450 Million in Cash
Arlington, 28 July 2026
Key points
- Leonardo DRS, the US-listed subsidiary of Italy's Leonardo, signed a definitive agreement on 28 July to acquire Raft LLC of McLean, Virginia, for USD 450 million in cash
- Raft, founded in 2018, builds open-architecture mission software for multi-domain data fusion, artificial intelligence and logistics for national security customers
- The deal is funded from cash on hand and the company's revolving credit facility, is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, and is expected to complete in the fourth quarter of 2026; DRS expects a tax benefit with a present value of about USD 50 million over 15 years
- It is the first acquisition under Lorenzo Mariani, who became Leonardo's chief executive in May 2026
Leonardo DRS agreed on 28 July to buy the American mission-software firm Raft for USD 450 million in cash, adding data fusion and artificial-intelligence software to a business built on sensing and computing hardware.
The stated logic is integration rather than diversification. DRS sells sensors and computing at the edge; Raft's software fuses disparate sensor feeds into a common operating picture, which is the layer between the hardware and the decision. The company's customer base is American national security, and the announcement came after the Milan close.
For the Italian parent the transaction is a statement about where it will buy software. Handelsblatt reads it as continuity with the digital and artificial-intelligence strategy of Mariani's predecessor Roberto Cingolani, and Leonardo has framed it as an expansion in the United States. The workshare consequence is that the group's multi-domain software content is American-owned and American-cleared.
The European primes are all buying the same layer, and mostly not in Europe. Software that turns distributed sensor data into targetable information is the part of the stack the incumbents did not build and cannot hire their way into quickly, which is why 2026 has seen them acquire and invest rather than develop — Thales taking Exail at a EUR 3.9 billion valuation, Lockheed Martin outbidding rivals for Ultra Maritime at USD 3.45 billion, and prime contractors participating in a record USD 4.1 billion of venture rounds this year, as Großwald Signal No. 111 and the preceding edition recorded. The observable in this case is narrow and dated: whether the fourth-quarter close survives regulatory review, and whether any of the acquired capability is offered to European customers rather than kept behind the American clearance boundary.
