Covenant, a defense company headquartered in Washington, DC, announced a ground-launched strike weapon called Anthem and said it raised more than $250 million across three funding rounds.
Covenant describes Anthem as a long-range, heavy-payload weapon system priced at a fraction of comparable legacy weapons and designed for production in the thousands. The company did not disclose Anthem’s range, payload or unit cost.
Covenant said Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Lux, 8VC, Aleph and Lightspeed led the funding rounds. The announcement included an endorsement by Kathleen Hicks, the former US Deputy Secretary of Defense who launched the Replicator initiative in August 2023, as an advisor to the company.
Anthem has flown more than 200 times
Covenant said Anthem first flew in August 2025 and has since completed more than 200 flights, including several tests conducted with the US Army in the United States and abroad.
One of those overseas tests may have been an August 2026 live-fire demonstration at the Africa Multidomain Training and Experimentation Center (AMTEC) in Tan-Tan, Morocco.
US Africa Command said the event involved a US defense technology startup testing a low-cost, long-range cruise missile system as part of the US Army’s Test Range Expansion Initiative.
Covenant targets 5,000 Anthem missiles a year
The company said it has booked approximately $150 million in orders to date covering qualification, research and development, and production work. Covenant added that some customers restrict public disclosure of their contracting activity.
Covenant said it holds an Other Transaction Agreement with the US Army for an accelerated test and qualification program, as well as a contract with the US Navy’s Rapid Capabilities Office valued at roughly $70 million, including a cost-share component, to adapt Anthem into a maritime variant.
That work also funds Defense Exportability Features modifications intended to speed exports to allied buyers.
US production will run from a 9,750-square-meter (105,000-square-foot) plant in Dallas, Texas, which Covenant said opened on September 9, 2026. Serial production is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2027 and ramp toward 5,000 units a year.
The company also cited a 10,200-square-meter (110,000-square-foot) site in Saxony, Germany, and a 2,970-square-meter (32,000-square-foot) facility in northern Israel.
Long-range strike production is accelerating
Covenant is entering a long-range strike market in which both the United States and European allies are trying to expand inventories, introduce new weapons and increase production capacity.
Germany agreed in July 2026 to buy US-built Tomahawk cruise missiles as an interim capability while European systems mature. Destinus and Rheinmetall are accelerating the 2,000-kilometer (1,240-mile) RUTA Block 3 for production in Germany and the Netherlands.
Those national programs sit alongside the European Long-range Strike Approach (ELSA), under which France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom are coordinating work on longer-range strike capabilities, including lower-cost systems with ranges beyond 500 kilometers (310 miles).