Major Beneficiaries of EDF and ASAP. Companies European Defence Fund (EDF) After the first three years of the EDF, about a thousand different entities (companies, research institutes, universities, government agencies and a few CSOs) have received funding. It is clear that a large portion of the money goes to a small set of large arms companies. This is exacerbated by the fact that many of these companies own (parts) of other beneficiaries, in the form of takeovers, joint ventures, subsidiaries or major shareholder ownership. With this in mind, almost a quarter of the funding ends up