Former Youngest Check Point and Microsoft Employee Raises $71 Million for Robotics Startup Enigma

Enigma, a robotics startup founded about ten months ago by former Unit 8200 veterans Yonatan Yakobi (CEO) and Gal Niv (CTO), both aged 26, has announced a significant seed funding round of $71 million. The company develops foundational AI models and software for Physical AI, enabling robots to operate effectively in human environments. Enigma also launched a public trial allowing users worldwide to remotely control AI-powered robots in real time.

The seed round was led by Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital, with participation from Conviction Partners, marking their first investment in Israel, and prominent Silicon Valley investors including founders and executives from OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Thinking Machines, Cognition, and Mercor. Notable individual investors include Assaf Rappaport and Merav Bahat, who invested personally and through their new Israeli fund Stardust.

Yakobi and Niv met during their service in Unit 8200, where Yakobi was the youngest employee ever at Microsoft and Check Point, and Niv was the youngest cyber operations manager in the unit’s history. Enigma aims to overcome current robotics challenges such as the need for extensive manual data collection and fragmented software infrastructure by creating AI models that require less physical data and can adapt to real-world environments.

The global robotics market has reached approximately $50 billion, with over $40 billion invested annually by 2025, and McKinsey forecasts humanoid robots alone could become a trillion-dollar market in coming decades. Enigma’s solution includes foundational Physical AI models, hardware-agnostic software layers, and intuitive human-robot interfaces.

Currently employing 25 staff in Tel Aviv, many from elite research units and academic backgrounds, Enigma plans to use the new funds to expand research and engineering teams, enhance computing infrastructure, accelerate software development, and broaden deployments in retail, healthcare, and industrial sectors. Yakobi emphasized the company’s vision to make smart robots accessible and intuitive tools, stating, “It doesn’t matter how good the robots are if they don’t feel natural, no one will use them.”