Covenant

Defense Tech · Aerospace · Manufacturing

Launch

Covenant exits stealth with $250M, opens Grand Prairie missile plant

Its mid-six-figure missile aims to undercut the $6 million Tomahawk as depleted U.S. stockpiles fuel a race for cheaper mass-produced weapons.

• Covenant emerged from stealth, disclosing $250 million raised across three rounds led by Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, 8VC, Aleph and Lightspeed, while opening a 105,000-square-foot missile factory in Grand Prairie, Texas.
• Founded in 2024 by CEO Michael Kaufman, the Washington, D.C.-based startup builds Anthem, a heavy-payload, long-range cruise missile designed to be mass-produced cheaply.
• The Grand Prairie plant targets 1,000 Anthem missiles in its first year, scaling to 5,000 annually starting in Q1 2027, with sister factories in Germany and Israel pushing combined global output to 12,000 a year.
• Covenant says it can build Anthem for a mid-six-figure price versus roughly $6 million for a Tomahawk, and has already booked about $150 million in orders.
• The launch comes as seven months of war in Iran and years of Ukraine support have drained U.S. long-range missile stockpiles, prompting Raytheon to secure a $23 billion deal to scale Tomahawk output from 60 to 1,000 a year.
• Covenant's emergence signals venture-backed startups are increasingly able to challenge entrenched defense primes on cost and speed as the Pentagon seeks new suppliers to refill depleted arsenals.
• Covenant plans to begin deliveries to international partners this year, with serial production for U.S. customers starting in the first quarter of 2027.