Israeli-US Covenant Industries launches new missile test in Tan Tan, Morocco

Israeli-American startup Covenant Industries successfully conducted a live launch of its innovative new Anthem cruise missile last week in the Tan Tan area of southern Morocco, as part of a joint military exercise involving the US military and the Moroccan Armed Forces.

The test marked the operational launch of the new Africa Multidomain Training and Experimentation Center (AMTEC). The new facility, established under the Abraham Accords and amid close cooperation between Washington and Rabat, is intended to become a permanent “military laboratory” for advanced warfare technologies.

During the test, US and Moroccan forces, together with company engineers, set up a temporary launch site in the dunes of the Sahara Desert and tested the missile’s communications systems, launch mechanisms, and the collection of communications and climate data in real time.

Covenant was founded in 2024 by Michael Kaufman, an American investor and entrepreneur operating out of Israel. The company, which has subsidiaries in Israel and Germany, has so far maintained an exceptionally low public profile and has no official website. That has not prevented it from raising hundreds of millions of dollars from major Silicon Valley funds, including Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz.

As part of the wave of defense tech companies, Covenant focuses on developing advanced warfare technologies at relatively low cost. Anthem is intended to be its flagship product, offering a cheaper alternative that is easier to mass produce than heavy and expensive cruise missiles such as the US Tomahawk, while maintaining long range capabilities and precision strike capacity.

The company is also working on developing lower cost interceptors against drones and swarms of aircraft.

The launch in Morocco was made possible through an initiative by the office of the US Secretary of the Army, which allows private technology companies to gain rapid access, within 30 days, to military testing grounds belonging to the US and its allies.

Covenant was the first company to make use of the initiative. The test represents a critical milestone toward serial production as early as the beginning of 2027.