Dragonfly Energy

Dragonfly Energy began in a rented Reno garage in 2012, after Denis Phares left a tenured professorship in aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Southern California, enrolled in the University of Nevada’s executive MBA programme, and moved north on the observation that northern Nevada — with its lithium mines, its renewable-energy resources, and its battery-adjacent industry — was the natural place from which to build an American lithium-battery firm. Fourteen years on, Dragonfly Energy is a publicly traded manufacturer of lithium iron phosphate battery systems, listed on Nasdaq under DFLI since October 2022.

The firm designs and manufactures lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery cells and battery packs for deep-cycle applications in which lead-acid was, until recently, the default. Its principal end markets are recreational vehicles, marine and off-grid solar, and heavy-duty and specialty vehicles; the Battle Born Batteries brand, launched in 2014, was Dragonfly’s original direct-to-consumer name and remains the firm’s consumer-facing identity in the RV market. Manufacturing is concentrated at a Reno facility of over 100,000 square feet, with a second site in Indiana added in 2023; the firm also holds proprietary dry-electrode manufacturing patents that it has licensed to Stryten Energy for stationary storage.

Two things distinguish Dragonfly among American battery firms of its size: the categorical thesis and the manufacturing method. On the category, the firm built its position by treating LiFePO4 not as an incremental improvement on lead-acid but as the correct chemistry for a class of deep-cycle applications where the older technology had been the default by assumption rather than by argument. On the method, Dragonfly’s dry-electrode process is among the few Western alternatives to the wet-slurry manufacture that dominates the Asian lithium-cell industry — and it underwrites both the firm’s cost position and a $30 million licensing agreement with Stryten Energy signed in 2024. THOR Industries, whose recreational vehicles carry Dragonfly batteries as standard, is an early investor.