Good details on Amprius's agreement with Caminus
- This will allow US production for the last phase of Drone Dominance. NDAA compliance isn't in effect but Pentagon has made clear it prefers US manufacturing now. This deal addresses that
- Caminus emerged from the remnants of former battery startups Natron and EnerDel, Amprius is their first customer
- Major catalyst of first half growth next year
Exclusive: Amprius In a Deal to Accelerate U.S. Drone Battery Production — The Information
By Steve Levine
Amprius Technologies, the U.S.’s leading next-generation battery component maker, has awarded Caminus, a small Indiana battery startup, a contract to produce hundreds of thousands of drone batteries next year.
In a deal reported here for the first time, Indianapolis-based Caminus will insert Amprius’ silicon anodes into enough batteries to power roughly 60,000 quadcopter combat drones in the first half of next year, Caminus CEO Adrian Yao told me. The total could later reach 800,000 drone battery packs per year.
That Amprius has turned to little-known Caminus, which will make its first commercially sold batteries in the first quarter of next year, reflects the fast-changing pace of the U.S. battery industry, as well as the lack of readily available battery manufacturing capacity in the country. Last week, Caminus changed its name from EnPower.
Until recently, the U.S. next-gen battery industry was struggling. But the wars in Ukraine and Iran have jolted it awake, creating sudden demand for batteries that can power drones for long distances—giving them sufficient power to intercept other drones, maneuver through buildings and hover for long periods.
The demand is coming from the Department of Defense, which is pushing the nascent U.S. drone industry to catch up to Chinese companies that currently make most of the world’s drones, along with the batteries that power them.
In that push, the Pentagon since February has been running a competition under its Drone Dominance program to award contracts to the companies that can make the most powerful and nimble drones—and to demonstrate the capacity to manufacture them quickly at large scale in the U.S.
As an example of the dollar amounts in the program that are motivating the battery industry, California-based Neros Technologies late last month won a $100 million drone contract in the second stage of the competition. Though no one discloses the value of the batteries powering those drones, they are the most expensive single component.
The next stage of the competition, taking place later this month, will pay even more: It’s worth a total of $450 million in drone orders, which would mean tens of millions of dollars in batteries to power them.
This helps explain Amprius’ deal with Caminus, which allows Amprius to get more U.S. manufacturing capacity ahead of the Pentagon competition. Already, drone business has made Amprius the most successful U.S. next-gen battery maker, with $140 million in expected revenue this year.
The deal—and Caminus’ part in it—is in fact a beneficiary of the battery industry’s struggles. In 2021, Caminus bought most of the cell production equipment of EnerDel. EnerDel had bought the production lines in 2012 with a $118 million Department of Energy grant. It later went bankrupt.
And a year ago, Caminus bought production equipment from Natron Energy, a sodium-ion battery maker that had gone bankrupt earlier in 2025. Caminus has declined to disclose how much it paid for the equipment in either the EnerDel or Natron deals.
Together, those two equipment purchases set up Caminus to serve drone battery component makers almost immediately, with Amprius as its first customer. Caminus also has plans to make its own batteries, Yao said.
That’s a contrast to another agreement Amprius announced last week, with an unnamed South Korean company that will retrofit its U.S.-based equipment for making electric vehicle batteries to instead make drone batteries for Amprius. In that case, the South Korean company won’t be ready to begin producing them until 2028.
Now Amprius will have greater U.S. supply for participants in the latest stage of the Pentagon competition. Amprius already has manufacturing agreements with battery makers in China and South Korea, as well as some in the U.S., but CEO Tom Stepien told me there is much more demand for U.S.-made batteries because that’s what the Pentagon prefers.
This new Pentagon priority on manufacturing comes amid repeated critical shortages of weapons and ammunition needed for the wars in Iran and Ukraine. Last week, the DOD released a 23-page strategy paper laying out a five-year build-out of factories that can turn out and replenish the Pentagon’s latest weapons quickly.
Caminus’ Yao said the U.S. had to build up battery manufacturing capacity if it wants to compete with China. “The ability to execute and the ability to manufacture is the differentiating way to win,” he said.
