Dr. Raj DasGupta, CEO of Electrovaya, on the floor of the company's assembly plant in Mississauga, Ont., in March, 2025.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
Shares of Electrovaya Inc. ELVA-T soared after the Canadian lithium-ion battery maker said it had struck a deal with Amazon.com Inc. AMZN-Q that could see the U.S. tech giant own more than 20 per cent of its stock.
Mississauga, Ont.-based Electrovaya said Wednesday it had signed a commercial agreement and warrants deal with the U.S. tech giant, its largest customer. Amazon will receive warrants carrying the right to buy up to 13,880,345 Electrovaya common shares at set prices for 10 years. The warrants will gradually vest as Amazon buys US$280-million worth of the Canadian company’s products.
Electrovaya stock opened Wednesday up more than 55 per cent, and was up 47 per cent in late-morning trading at US$11.60 - well above the warrant price. The stock has more than quadrupled in value since the start of 2025.
Electrovaya had 53.5 million fully diluted shares outstanding as of March 31, the end of its fiscal second quarter; if Amazon were to exercise all of the warrants it would own 20.6 per cent of Electrovaya stock based on its latest share count. Amazon is under no obligation to buy any stock.
It’s likely to take several years for Amazon to accumulate all the warrants. Amazon accounted for roughly one-third of Electrovaya’s US$63.8-million in fiscal 2025 revenue.
The 130-person company supplies batteries used in electrified forklifts and material handling vehicles that move around warehouses. Other key clients include Walmart, Jabil, Target and Toyota.
Electrovaya is also focused on several developments it hopes to fuel its longer term growth, including ultrafast charging battery technology, batteries for robotic applications and energy storage products to serve data centres and other commercial and industrial sites. Electrovaya intends to take its new offerings to market in 2027; chief executive officer Raj DasGupta said in an interview he expects the energy storage products for data centres to be its top revenue source by 2028.
The Amazon deal covers deployment of Electrovaya’s current battery technology in material handling operations with the potential to expand to robotics and energy storage applications.
“Amazon’s activities align very nicely with our technology,” Mr. DasGupta said. “They are already our biggest buyer. As a strategic partner and investor, that makes us the more attractive solution” for Amazon particularly as Electrovaya introduces its new products. “This technology is a good fit.”
Asked if the deal could lead to Amazon buying Electrovaya, Mr. DasGupta said “there could be a scenario where that happens.” But he added: “Electrovaya is starting to become a success story here and we’re not looking to sell the company right now. Our objective is to make and sell more batteries” and to expand its manufacturing capacity.
Electrovaya was founded 29 years ago by lithium-ion battery pioneers Sankar DasGupta, the CEO’s father (Mr. DasGupta succeeded him in June, 2022) and Jim Jacobs. Electrovaya uses a proprietary ceramic separator technology that keeps its batteries from igniting if they overheat – unlike rival products that use polymer separators – and chemistry that gives the product better energy density, a longer operating life and faster charging capabilities.
Electrovaya has experienced a series of ups and downs since it went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2000 (it expanded to Nasdaq in 2023). The company developed batteries for early EVs and secured partnerships with General Motors, NASA and Microsoft. But a U.S. government-funded venture with Chrysler ended in 2012 after its EV batteries overheated when pushed to provide “reverse charging” to the grid from experimental Dodge Rams.
Four years later the company bought Europe’s largest lithium-ion battery plant, located in Germany, and negotiated contracts worth almost US$300-million to supply batteries for residential energy storage on the continent.
But the Daimler EV car the German plant supplied sold poorly. The underused facility hemorrhaged money and Electrovaya put it into voluntary insolvency in 2018. Revenues dropped to less than US$5-million that year from US$19.5-million in 2016. The stock sank below $1.
The European retreat, however, saved the company. Electrovaya pivoted to selling to warehouse operators to power their load-carrying vehicles, where it was winning orders. After initially outsourcing some of its production to Asia, it began onshoring production to North America, and it’s now one of the few lithium-ion battery makers to serve the U.S. market from within that country.
Electrovaya’s revenue expanded by 43 per cent last year and the company has forecast it will grow by another 30 per cent-plus this year to surpass US$83-million. Its stock has tripled since the end of 2024.