Israeli Robotics Startup Enigma Raises $71 Million to Advance Physical AI for Robots

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

The funding round was led by Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital, with participation from Conviction Partners, investing in Israel for the first time, and prominent Silicon Valley investors including founders and executives from OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Thinking Machines, Cognition, and Mercor. Israeli investors Asaf Rappaport and Merav Bahat also contributed both personally and through their new fund Stardust’s first Israeli investment.

Yakobi and Niv, both 26, met during their service in Unit 8200, where they worked on advanced cyber and AI projects. Yakobi was previously the youngest employee at Microsoft and Check Point, while Niv became the youngest cyber operations manager in Unit 8200’s history. Enigma’s technology aims to overcome current robotics challenges such as the need for extensive manual data collection and fragmented software infrastructure by creating hardware-agnostic AI models and intuitive human-robot interfaces.

The company currently employs 25 staff in Tel Aviv, including top researchers and engineers from AI, mathematics, physics, cyber, and robotics backgrounds, many of whom are graduates of elite Israeli technological programs and international science Olympiads. Enigma plans to use the new capital to expand its research and engineering teams, enhance computing infrastructure and GPU capabilities, accelerate software development, and broaden deployments in real-world robotic environments.

Yonatan Yakobi emphasized the transformative potential of Physical AI, stating, "The next stage of artificial intelligence is moving from chatbots and screens to systems that understand, adapt to, and operate in the physical world. Enigma is building the intelligence for robots, the key to this leap. Our goal is to make smart robots accessible, useful, and intuitive tools for everyone."