racing to produce<\/a> more cost-effective missiles to meet demand from the Pentagon. In November, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also announced an overhaul of the department\u2019s weapons acquisition strategy that aims in part to encourage new companies to enter the market for defense contracts.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Covenant's]()
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Covenant’s flagship weapon system, Anthem.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Covenant Industries<\/p>\n
Covenant, which was founded in 2024, has already secured a test contract with the U.S. Army and another agreement with the U.S. Navy to adapt a maritime version of its Anthem missiles. The startup has secured approximately $150 million in orders, according to information the company provided to\u00a0The News.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhen you look at our adversaries, you see thousands of hardened targets, beyond the range of current capabilities,\u201d Michael Kaufman, the company\u2019s cofounder and CEO, said in a statement. \u201cAnthem was built to credibly hold those targets at risk in a prolonged conflict. If our stockpiles run thin, so does our deterrence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Covenant is scheduled to hold a ribbon-cutting for its new North Texas facility Wednesday, with Covenant executives as well as U.S. Rep. Jake Ellzey, R-Waxahachie, and U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Michael Duffey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Covenant looked across the country for a place to build, they found what we already know about North Texas,\u201d Ellzey said in a statement. \u201cWe have the workers, engineers and innovators to get the job done.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
David Ulevitch, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, was also scheduled to attend. The Silicon Valley-based firm, which ranks among the biggest names in venture capital, has led three fundraising rounds for the company along with Founders Fund \u2014 the VC firm cofounded by PayPal and Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel \u2014 Lux, 8VC, Aleph and Lightspeed. Covenant has announced more than $250 million in funding across the three rounds, the company said.<\/p>\n
The defense startup is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and also has production facilities in Germany and Israel. Kaufman, the company\u2019s cofounder, previously worked with Thiel\u2019s firms and served in the Israel Defense Forces. Covenant expects to begin production at its North Texas facility in the first quarter of next year, and will eventually produce up to 5,000 missiles at the site annually, the company said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The Grand Prairie factory is located on Avenue K just north of Interstate 30 and near State Highway 360.<\/p>\n
While Covenant has largely stayed under the radar since its founding \u2014 by announcing the Texas production plans the company was \u201cemerging from stealth,\u201d Abby Denburg, its president and chief growth officer said in a statement, referencing a phase when new companies avoid public attention for competitive reasons \u2014 it has regularly been testing its missiles. Last month it participated in a joint exercise between the U.S. military and Moroccan Armed Forces in the Sahara Desert.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s presence in North Texas adds to the region\u2019s already large defense sector hub, which includes major names such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Bell Textron.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Covenant’s flagship weapon system, Anthem. Courtesy of Covenant Industries Covenant Industries, a defense tech startup tied to some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151],"class_list":["post-431441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431441","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=431441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}