That was the case for big EU funded projects with lots of industrial + accademia participants. I worked at a place where we had people working full time on setting up proposals for these projects. This was a very political game (find partners in countries the EU wants to help this year!), and very low risk too for big partners. We were usually "selling" stuff that had been done already, and the new funding was used to work on new stuff. That meant we could always show successful projects, which in turn helped getting new funding - rinse and repeat.

NGI is different, they seem to focus more on funding individuals and open source projects with relatively small grants. This has good and bad sides of course - a more level playing field, but makes it still difficult for projects that require long term work.

Yes, NGI is funding several similar efforts.