He was the youngest employee at Check Point and Microsoft - and is now raising $71 million for a new company
The robotics startup Enigma, founded about ten months ago by 8200 alumni Yonatan Yakobi (CEO) and Gal Niv (CTO), both 26, has been revealed for the first time with a massive $71 million seed round. The company is developing foundation models and software for Physical AI that will allow robots to operate in human environments, and is launching a public real-time remote control experiment.
Enigma, a company operating in the Physical AI field and developing AI models for smart robots, is revealed today for the first time and announces the completion of a seed funding round of $71 million — a very high initial investment. The round was led by Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital, with the participation of Conviction Partners, for whom this was the first investment in Israel, and other investors and advisors who are Silicon Valley executives, including founders and senior officials from leading AI companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Thinking Machines, Cognition, and Mercor. Notable investors include Assaf Rappoport and Merav Bahat, who made a double investment: both as personal investors and through the first investment of their new fund, Stardust, in Israel.
Enigma was founded just about ten months ago by 26-year-olds Yonatan Yakobi (CEO) and Gal Niv (CTO), who met during their service in Unit 8200 and worked together on advanced technology and cyber systems. Yakobi began studying for a degree in computer science and mathematics at age 13 and later became the youngest employee in the history of Microsoft (he was recruited by Rappoport, who was the CEO at the time) and Check Point, working there during his high school studies. Even before his conscription into the IDF, he engaged in cyber research and, together with other developers, founded Perfect Blue, which became the top-ranked cyber competition group in the world. Throughout his service, Niv led advanced research and development projects in the fields of cyber and artificial intelligence, becoming the youngest cyber operations manager in the history of Unit 8200.
According to Enigma, despite large investments in robotics, most robotics systems still require dedicated adjustments, prolonged manual collection of data from the physical world, fragmented software infrastructures, and significant engineering work to turn AI models into reliable systems in a real environment. The company states that by 2025, over $40 billion was invested annually in robotics companies worldwide, and that the global robotics market reached a volume of about $50 billion. According to McKinsey forecasts, the market for humanoid robots alone may grow in the coming decades into a trillion-dollar category.
Enigma is developing a solution consisting of three components: foundation models for Physical AI, a software layer that is independent of specific robot hardware, and human-robot interfaces. According to the company, the approaches it is developing for training AI models for robotics are intended to reduce the need for massive data collection from the physical world and improve the ability of intelligent systems to operate in real environments. Later today, the company will launch a public online experience that will allow users around the world to interact in real-time with AI-based robots. Participants will be able to remotely control robots, perform tasks, and test how robotic systems respond to human instructions in real-time. According to the company, this is the largest artificial intelligence experiment for robots opened to the general public to date.
Today, the company employs 25 people in its offices in Tel Aviv and works with partners in the retail, healthcare, and industrial sectors. The company has recruited a team of researchers and engineers from the fields of artificial intelligence, mathematics, physics, cyber, and robotics. Many of the employees are graduates of the leading research units of 8200, outstanding researchers and doctoral students in the fields of mathematics and AI, graduates of elite technological programs, and winners of international scientific olympiads. The funding will be used to expand research and engineering teams, increase computing infrastructure and the company's GPU capabilities, accelerate the development of the software layer for Physical AI, and expand deployments in real robotic environments.
"Once every few decades, a technological breakthrough occurs that changes entire industries. We believe that the next stage of artificial intelligence is the transition from chatbots and screens to systems that understand the physical world, adapt to it, and act within it," says Yonatan Yakobi, co-founder and CEO of the company. "Enigma is building the intelligence for robots, the key to this leap. We are developing advanced AI models and intuitive human-robot interfaces. Our goal is to make smart robots an accessible, useful, and intuitive work tool for everyone. Ultimately, it doesn't matter how good the robots are; if they don't feel natural, no one will use them."
