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Drone Over Mountains

OUR STORY

Air Energy is an energy storage platform company developing solid-state lithium-air batteries to deliver transformational improvements in energy density, safety, and mission capability for aerial and autonomous systems and back-up AI power resilience.

Air Energy was founded on a simple conviction: the limits of electric flight, autonomy, and resilient power are not set by physics—they are set by batteries.

Lithium-ion technology is nearing its ceiling. Incremental gains can no longer unlock the step-change performance required for long-range drones, electric aviation, and mission-critical power systems operating far from the grid. Air Energy exists to break through that ceiling.

Born from a breakthrough in solid-state lithium-air science, we are pioneering a new class of batteries designed to deliver nearly 4x the energy density of today’s best lithium-ion cells—while improving safety, sustainability, and system-level resilience. By eliminating the need to carry oxygen internally, our architecture dramatically reduces inactive mass, enabling lighter platforms, longer endurance, and entirely new mission profiles that were previously impossible.

This is not an incremental upgrade. It is a platform shift.

Air Energy’s technology will unlock capabilities such as multi-day autonomous maritime surveillance, long-range cargo drones, persistent aerial communications, electric regional aviation, and resilient backup power for critical infrastructure and AI data centers. These capabilities expand what electric systems can do—and who they can serve.

We are execution-driven, moving from validated science to real-world cells, pilot manufacturing, and full-system integration in partnership with government and commercial leaders.

Air Energy is a Public Benefit Corporation because our mission goes beyond performance metrics and financial returns. We are building foundational energy technology to catalyze energy resilience and independence at scale.

We are not here to promise the future.


We are here to build it—cell by cell, system by system—until what once seemed impossible becomes the new baseline for energy.

MEET OUR
LEADERSHIP TEAM

CO-FOUNDER & CEO

Benjamin Drake

Benjamin (Ben) is an accomplished leader with 20+ years of experience spanning national security, emerging technology, and commercialization. Prior to co-founding Air Energy Inc., Ben served as an executive at Workhorse, led energy resilience for the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and was the emerging technology lead on the Secretary of Defense's strategy team. He also held senior roles across NASA, the U.S. Department of State, and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. A former Presidential Management Fellow and U.S. Navy Reserve S&T Officer, his career bridges engineering, finance, business development across electric vehicle manufacturing and autonomous platforms, including drones and maritime systems. Earlier in his career, he served as a science deck officer and research diver aboard the global Scripps Institution of Oceanography fleet. He holds a B.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Michigan State University; a Master’s in Energy Engineering from the University of Illinois Chicago; a Space Systems certificate from the Naval Postgraduate School; and is an alum of the University of Chicago Booth Executive Finance Program.

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CO-FOUNDER & CEO Benjamin Drake
CO-FOUNDER & CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER Mohammad Asadi, PhD

CO-FOUNDER &
CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER

Mohammad Asadi, PhD

Mohammad brings over a decade of experience in next-generation battery research, including the recent breakthrough solid-state lithium-air battery technology. He is an Associate Professor in the Chemical Engineering Department at IIT, where he leads the Electrochemical Energy Materials & Devices Lab (e2MDL). Before joining IIT in 2017, he completed his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at UIC, a M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Sharif University, and spent seven years in the oil and gas industry. His research focuses on advanced materials, electrocatalysis, and electrochemical energy storage, including metal-air and metal-ion batteries. A co-inventor on multiple lithium-air battery patents, he is dedicated to developing efficient, cost-effective energy storage systems aimed at transforming the energy storage industry.

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CO-FOUNDER &
CHIEF SCIENCE OFFICER

Larry Curtiss, PhD

Larry is an Argonne Distinguished Fellow with a career spanning more than four decades in quantum science and next-generation battery research. He has led significant initiatives, including serving as Senior Investigator at the DOE’s Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (2012–2023), and as Deputy Director of the Center for Electrical Energy Storage (2019–2021). Larry is a pioneer in computational chemistry, authoring more than 550 publications, and developing quantum chemical methods critical for accurate energy calculations. His recent focus is on designing novel electrolytes and understanding charge and discharge chemistries in Li-ion, Li-O2, and Li-S batteries. As a co-inventor on nine patents and a Highly Cited Chemistry Researcher by ISI, his innovations continue to shape the future of energy storage. Larry holds a Ph.D from Carnegie Mellon University.

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CO-FOUNDER & CHIEF SCIENCE OFFICER Larry Curtiss, PhD

Strategic Advisors

Our strategic advisors bring decades of cross-industry experience in energy, engineering, operations, and growth strategy.

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