Israeli AI Robotics Startup Enigma Raises $71 Million in Seed Funding

Enigma, an Israeli startup specializing in artificial intelligence models for robotics, has publicly launched after securing $71 million in seed funding just ten months after its founding. The funding round was led by Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital, with Conviction Partners making its first investment in Israel. Additional investors include private individuals Asaf Rappaport and Merav Bahat, who also invested through the Stardust fund, alongside founders and executives from leading AI companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Thinking Machines, Cognition, and Mercor.

Founded by CEO Yehonatan Yakobi and CTO Gal Niv, who met during their service in the elite Israeli intelligence unit 8200, Enigma currently employs 25 people in Tel Aviv. The company collaborates with partners across retail, healthcare, and industrial sectors. Enigma develops unified AI solutions for robotics, combining foundational Physical AI models, hardware-agnostic software layers, and new human-robot interaction interfaces. Their innovative training methods reduce the need for extensive physical-world data collection while enhancing robots’ ability to understand and adapt to real environments.

The funds will be used to expand research and engineering teams, increase computing infrastructure and GPU capabilities, accelerate development of the Physical AI software layer, and broaden deployments in real robotic settings. Yakobi, recognized as a prodigy in Israeli tech, began university studies at age 13 and previously worked at Check Point and Microsoft. Niv led advanced cyber and AI projects during his military service, becoming the youngest cyber operations manager in unit 8200’s history.

Despite rapid AI advances, enabling reliable AI operation in physical environments remains a major challenge. The global robotics market, valued at around $50 billion, has seen over $40 billion invested annually by 2025, driven by demand in logistics, manufacturing, security, and consumer sectors. However, most robotics systems still require extensive manual data collection and engineering to function reliably. Enigma aims to change this by integrating advanced AI research with innovative human-robot interaction, improving usability alongside robotic capabilities.

Later today, Enigma will launch a public online trial allowing users worldwide to remotely interact with AI-powered robots in real time, performing tasks and observing robot responses to human commands. The company describes this as the largest AI robotics experiment ever opened to the public.