Enigma Raises $71 Million to Put AI-Powered Robots Online
The Israeli-founded startup emerges from stealth with a mission to make robots as intuitive to use as smartphones
Photo credit: Natasha Zeriker / Enigma
Robots are becoming more capable, but one major challenge remains: making them intelligent, adaptable and simple enough for people to use. Enigma is tackling that challenge, emerging from stealth with a $71 million seed round and a public platform that allows users worldwide to interact with AI-powered robots online.
The round was led by Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital, with participation from Conviction Partners and executives from OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepMind, xAI, Cognition and Wiz. Founded less than a year ago by Israeli entrepreneurs Jonathan Jacobi and Gal Niv, Enigma develops AI models designed to bring intelligence to different types of robots, regardless of the underlying hardware.
The company’s first public experiment, launching at Robots.online, will allow users to control and interact with real robots remotely in real time. Enigma says the platform will help it understand how people naturally communicate with machines and use that data to improve its AI models and interfaces.
While AI has advanced rapidly in software environments, enabling machines to operate reliably in the physical world remains a major challenge. Many robots still require extensive customization, manual data collection and significant engineering before they can be deployed.
Enigma is developing an “intelligence layer” for robotics that combines AI foundation models with software allowing robots to adapt across environments and tasks. The goal is to simplify deployment and make interaction with machines more natural.
“No matter how capable robots get, if they aren't intuitive to use, most people never will,” said Jonathan Jacobi, co-founder and CEO of Enigma.
Jacobi and Niv met while serving in Israel’s Unit 8200. Jacobi began studying computer science at 13 and became the youngest employee at Microsoft and Check Point at 17. Niv began hardware hacking as a child and later managed cyber operations at a young age.
Enigma’s team combines expertise in AI, robotics, cybersecurity, mathematics and physics. The company will use the funding to expand research and engineering, increase computing capacity and accelerate deployments in entertainment, retail and healthcare.