Techniques and apparatus for operating an always-on low-dropout (LDO) voltage regulator during cold boot and different sleep mode scenarios for a device including the LDO regulator. The LDO regulator may be disposed, for example, in a wireless local area network (WLAN) device powered by a coin cell battery. One example apparatus may be an integrated circuit (IC), which may be disposed in such a WLAN device and/or may be a power management unit (PMU). The IC generally includes a first port for coupling to a battery, a second port, a switched-mode power supply (SMPS) including a power supply input coupled to the second port, and an LDO regulator including a power supply input selectively coupled to the first port or to an output of the SMPS.