Li-S Energy the latest microcap to pivot to US defence market

Li-S Energy (ASX:LIS) has joined a raft of industrial microcaps pivoting in recent years towards the US defence market as the global remilitarisation thematic rolls on – sending shares up around +10%.

While it might be strange to see a lithium company popping off, it’s not the lithium that really matters but rather what the company is trying to do: improve battery lithium tech.

For drones.

(That should make the jump make more sense.)

And now, Wednesday has graced the market with news Li-S Energy has just appointed a US defence advisor, an entity not an individual, to help navigate it into the US defence supply chain.

If that sounds familiar, we’re seeing a similar story play out from Locksley Resources right now. The appointment of a defence advisor was also where AML3D also started taking off.

Critical metals miners, and anything defence-adjacent, are currently the beneficiaries of a risk-on psychology, so long as they’re based in the US. And with Li-S Energy’s claim to be able to keep drones in the air for longer, the military applications are obvious.

(This, too, after the company claimed to be the first to produce lithium foils in Australia in recent history.)

So who’s the advisor? A company called Paladin Defence Services LLC.

“Based in Kentucky, Paladin is a defence services company headed by Roy ‘Chuck’ Waggoner, a former US Army brigade commander with extensive service in the 75th Ranger Regiment,” Li-S Energy wrote on Wednesday.

That, clearly, has been enough to do the trick.

LIS last traded at 17cps.

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