Washington, D.C.-based defense startup Covenant just emerged from stealth mode with the grand opening of a missile factory in Grand Prairie and $250 million in venture capital.

Covenant’s 105,000-square-foot North Texas facility makes a new heavy-payload, long-range cruise missile called Anthem. So far, it has manufactured prototypes and test units. The company said it plans to begin full-scale production in the first quarter of 2027. It aims to ramp up production to 5,000 units per year.

“When you look at our adversaries, you see thousands of hardened targets beyond the range of current capabilities,” co-founder and CEO Michael Kaufman said in a statement about the opening. “Anthem was built to credibly hold those targets at risk in a prolonged conflict. If our stockpiles run thin, so does our deterrence.”

Initial wins

Covenant’s investors include a who’s who of tech and defense VC funds. The company said Andreessen Horowitz, the Peter Thiel co-founded Founders Fund, Lux Capital, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC, Tel Aviv-based Aleph and Lightspeed Venture Partners led its three funding rounds.

“American dynamism is about backing founders taking on the missions that matter most to America’s national security and rebuilding the West’s long-range strike arsenal is at the top of that list,” David Ulevitch, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, said in a statement. “Covenant has the technical depth and the urgency the mission requires, and the company has already proven it in the air, not on paper.”

That proof includes a live-fire demonstration of Anthem in July at the U.S. Army’s Project Convergence Capstone 6, a joint multinational event at Fort Irwin in California. During the 10-day event, the Army tested more than 90 emerging technologies as part of its modernization efforts.

Then, in August, Anthem completed a flight test at the Multidomain Training Area range complex, a U.S. military training and testing facility in Morocco. The company said it has flown Anthem nearly every week for the past year.

The case for a new missile

Covenant’s Anthem cruise missile [Photo: Covenant]

Covenant positions Anthem as a long-range cruise missile that is less expensive than those in the current U.S. weapons stockpile. The company said most of Anthem’s parts are off the shelf. It has signed long-term agreements for other key components with local supply chains in allied nations. Also, Covenant built its own mission-planning and command-and-control software.

In addition to ramping up production in North Texas, Covenant operates a similar 110,000-square-foot facility in Saxony, Germany, and a 32,000-square-foot facility in Israel. The company is hiring for engineering, manufacturing and program management roles at all three locations.

“We don’t lack advanced weapons, we lack enough of them, and that’s a production question as much as technology one,” Mike Garcia, a former U.S. representative and an adviser to Covenant, said in a statement. “Anthem is Covenant’s answer, a missile designed from day one to be built in the numbers a real fight demands.”

Covenant holds a contract with the U.S. Army for an accelerated testing and qualification program. It also holds a contract with the U.S. Navy’s Rapid Capabilities Office to adapt the ground-launched Anthem for maritime environments. The company values this work at roughly $70 million.

“Emerging from stealth and announcing our production plans marks Covenant’s next phase,” Abby Denburg, president and chief growth officer at Covenant, said in a statement. “Now the measure of our success is execution: delivering mission-critical capability to our customers on time, at scale and with the performance they expect.”