If you’ve learned one thing from this newsletter, we hope it’s that new tech is changing the way wars are fought. Drones, directed energy weapons, massive sensor suites—they’ve changed the shape of the battlefield. But the thing is, they also require a heck of a lot of power.
Power isn’t always easy to come by at the edge. Out there, troops are still relying on old-school generators—loud, clunky, fuel-hungry machines that waste energy and can give away positions. And when they fail—meaning sensors can’t be powered and drones can’t be charged—we lose the tech advantage we all love to talk about.
Enter: Chariot Defense. The new defense-focused energy and power startup came out of stealth this morning with $8M in seed funding led by General Catalyst and XYZ, and a plan to change how energy and power are controlled and distributed on the battlefield.
“It’s clear that the future of warfare is going to be mobile, expeditionary, distributed, decentralized, and it’s going to heavily rely on edge compute,” Chariot Founder and CEO Adam Warmoth told Tectonic. “Power is the core unlock technology that we just haven’t really had to wrestle with [yet] because of the way we’ve been fighting.”
Power play: Chariot has developed a smart power system called Amphora that uses a combination of high-voltage architecture and software to optimize the use of the very limited energy available at the frontline or in remote, contested environments. The idea is that when lots of power is needed for new tech, and limited resources are available, you’ve got to be smart about how you distribute things.
Warmoth said that a lot of his obsession with power and energy came from his time working at Anduril as senior director of engineering. There, he said that the number one limiting factor for new advanced systems was power. And the only tools they had to solve that power problem were generators and low-voltage lead-acid batteries.
These come with some major disadvantages:
- Weight: Generators get more powerful the bigger they are (and the more fuel they can hold). But they’re not particularly good at storing energy, so they have to be sized for the absolute maximum level of power you might need, even if you only need it for a few seconds.
- Signature: As we’ve mentioned, generators make a lot of noise. That’s pretty good for giving away positions, and pretty bad for ear health.
- Reliability: If a generator runs out of fuel or simply dies, so does everything else relying on it.
- Logistics: The way current generators are designed, they waste a lot of fuel—which is a huge logistics burden. They’re also a real pain to move around, especially when they’re big and powerful.
Amp it up: The inspiration for Chariot Defense and Amphora came—at least partially—from the electric vehicle (EV) and electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft industries. (Warmoth also worked for Archer Aviation.) There, companies use high-voltage batteries to produce a lot more power with thinner cables and fewer components.
Warmoth and his team combined this kind of battery architecture with a smart power distribution software to create Amphora. The result is a silent, lightweight power system that can fit into a Pelican case—and can be moved around by just two people.
- Amphora can be powered by whatever you’ve got, from generators to solar panels, then moved to where power is needed.
- Because the system contains a battery, it can store energy and only release it as needed, increasing efficiency. So if, for example, you only need a short burst of power for a directed energy weapon, you don’t need to keep the generator running for hours, burning fuel, to produce it.
- Amphora is stealthy—not only is it quiet, but has a low heat signature, which makes it hard to detect.
- The higher-voltage version of the system is a bit larger than a Pelican case, but can still be put on tracks and moved around easily.
“While everyone focuses on building smarter weapons, Chariot is building the intelligent power
systems that make them all work,” Ross Fubini, Managing Partner at XYZ Venture Capital, said in a statement. “This isn’t just better batteries or quieter generators—[Chariot is] positioning to become the power prime contractor for modern warfare.”
Future so bright: Warmoth says Chariot’s power systems are already being tested by units across the military, including:
- The 101st Airborne
- The Defense Innovation Unit
- “Cutting-edge” Marine Corps teams
The company’s first test was back in February with the Naval Postgraduate School, and they had Amphora systems fielded with troops by May. (The company went from concept to fielding in about six months, which is pretty speedy.)
For now, the company will remain focused on testing and improving its systems with feedback from all of these units, Warmoth said. They’re also going to keep building out their Bay Area-based team, which already includes alumni from Anduril, Tesla, Apple, Uber, and Archer, before going out for more funding.
And the demand seems to be there. Warmoth pointed out that all of the automated and cutting-edge tech in the FY26 defense budget will need to be powered somehow—that’s good news for Chariot.