Amazon strikes a deal that could get it a chunk of a Canadian battery company in the future

An Electrovaya Inc. battery system powered by lithium ion ceramic technology is tested at the company's headquarters in Mississauga, Ont. Photo by James MacDonald/Bloomberg files

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Amazon.com Inc. reached an agreement whereby as it purchases batteries from Mississauga, Ont.-based Electrovaya Inc., it can also earn warrants to increase its ownership stake in the company to above 20 per cent.

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Electrovaya, which derives most of its revenues from selling batteries used in forklifts, announced the deal to investors on Wednesday.

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Under the terms, Amazon received about 13.8 million warrants to buy Electrovaya shares, priced at the five-day volume-weighted average prior to the deal. The warrants become fully vested if Amazon’s purchases from Electrovaya reach US$280 million in the next decade, with a portion of the warrants vesting immediately.

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“This is an exciting inflection point for us,” Raj DasGupta, chief executive of Electrovaya, said.

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Amazon does not currently hold an equity stake in Electrovaya and the options it received under the deal “give Amazon the option to purchase common shares of Electrovaya in the future,” a company spokesperson said.

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DasGupta said Amazon is already a large customer.

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“Electrovaya has some compelling and enticing battery technologies,” he said.

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DasGupta said his company has developed a proprietary technology that allows its batteries to withstand multiple charge cycles without any performance degradation, which lends itself well to what he calls material handling applications in which a device is in continuous or heavy use, such as forklifts.

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Electrovaya posted US$63.8 million in revenues in 2025, up from $44.6 million the prior year. But its net profit jumped to US$3.4 million, up from a US$1.5-million loss the prior year.

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Nearly all its revenues came from producing batteries for forklifts, DasGupta said, but the company is starting to make deliveries on batteries for the robotics segment and he hopes to begin delivering batteries for energy storage solutions that can be used at data centres in 2027.

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The company is currently in the process of constructing a battery cell manufacturing plant in Jamestown, N.Y., and it already operates a battery assembly pack plant in Mississauga.

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DasGupta said the company sees a niche for its batteries in “mission-critical-type applications” where the device has a high utilization rate.

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That would not include personal cars or trucks, most of which sit parked throughout the day, he said.

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Initially, Electrovaya focused on producing batteries for autos — winning contracts with the United States government and at one point owning a battery plant in Germany — but it pivoted away from that segment in 2018 after suffering financial losses, he said.

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“Our experience in automotive was tough,” he said. “It was a race to the bottom and if you didn’t have scale or the government looking after you, it was extremely hard to compete.”

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Now, DasGupta said Electrovaya is focused on “quality,” marketing its proprietary ceramic separator technology as safer and more resilient than other lower-cost alternatives.

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The company’s stock surged 38.4 per cent on Wednesday to US$10.90.

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DasGupta said he would like Amazon to continue buying Electrovaya batteries for forklifts and then expand its purchases for its data centres.

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“What we would love to see is continued growth with them,” he said.

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