{"id":430945,"date":"2026-09-09T20:09:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T20:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/430945\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T20:09:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T20:09:14","slug":"covenant-opens-grand-prairie-anthem-missile-factory-raises-250m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/430945\/","title":{"rendered":"Covenant Opens Grand Prairie Anthem Missile Factory, Raises $250M"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Anthem<\/p>\n

Washington, D.C.-based defense startup Covenant has been testing its Anthem missile for the past 12 months. [Photo: Covenant]<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Covenant\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at our adversaries, you see thousands of hardened targets beyond the range of current capabilities,\u201d co-founder and CEO Michael Kaufman said in a statement about the opening. \u201cAnthem was built to credibly hold those targets at risk in a prolonged conflict. If our stockpiles run thin, so does our deterrence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initial wins<\/p>\n

Covenant\u2019s investors include a who\u2019s 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\u2019s 8VC, Tel Aviv-based Aleph and Lightspeed Venture Partners led its three funding rounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerican dynamism is about backing founders taking on the missions that matter most to America\u2019s national security and rebuilding the West\u2019s long-range strike arsenal is at the top of that list,\u201d David Ulevitch, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, said in a statement. \u201cCovenant has the technical depth and the urgency the mission requires, and the company has already proven it in the air, not on paper.\u201d<\/p>\n

That proof includes a live-fire demonstration of Anthem in July at the U.S. Army\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The case for a new missile<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Covenant\u2019s Anthem cruise missile [Photo: Covenant]<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t lack advanced weapons, we lack enough of them, and that\u2019s a production question as much as technology one,\u201d Mike Garcia, a former U.S. representative and an adviser to Covenant, said in a statement. \u201cAnthem is Covenant\u2019s answer, a missile designed from day one to be built in the numbers a real fight demands.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Rapid Capabilities Office to adapt the ground-launched Anthem for maritime environments. The company values this work at roughly $70 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmerging from stealth and announcing our production plans marks Covenant\u2019s next phase,\u201d Abby Denburg, president and chief growth officer at Covenant, said in a statement. \u201cNow the measure of our success is execution: delivering mission-critical capability to our customers on time, at scale and with the performance they expect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tR E A D\u00a0\u00a0 N E X T\t<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Spears Institute\u2019s new global ambassador told founders that infrastructure is what lets creativity scale. The event continues through Thursday with more than 40 sessions and a closing keynote from Colossal Biosciences CEO Ben Lamm.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The first of four episodes of Next Founder Up dropped Aug. 5. The series will follow the six startups competing for CodeLaunch\u2019s U.S. championship, including Frisco-based Drip Inventory.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Irving-based Builders FirstSource led a $25.3 million Series A investment as part of a larger partnership with the Vancouver, Washington-based maker of AI software for residential construction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Washington, D.C.-based defense startup Covenant has been testing its Anthem missile for the past 12 months. [Photo: Covenant]…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[145854,149781,149782,27338,98275,150,152,151,30425,149783,149784,4017,149785,1279,149786,149787,15275,149788,136185,55750,3434],"class_list":["post-430945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-8vc","tag-abby-denburg","tag-aleph","tag-andreessen-horowitz","tag-anthem","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-covenant","tag-cruise-missile","tag-david-ulevitch","tag-defense","tag-founders-fund","tag-grand-prairie","tag-lightspeed-venture-partners","tag-lux-capital","tag-manufacturing","tag-michael-kaufman","tag-mike-garcia","tag-u-s-army","tag-u-s-navy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}