SSI exec leaves to found AI startup in Tel Aviv

Another senior executive has left the Tel Aviv development center of Safe Superintelligence (SSI), the company set up by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.

Senior software engineer Shahar Papini recently left SSI to become cofounder of Attestable, one of the most promising Israeli startups in the field of AI. Papini founded Attestable, where he serves as CTO, together with several former executives at the Israeli unicorn Starkware. Attestable, which was founded in July 2025, raised nearly $20 million in a seed round at a company valuation of $71 million, even before the company developed a product and launched it on the market.

A company without a product

Attestable was cofounded by CEO Dr. Yogev Bar-On, a former software engineer at Meta and a researcher at the Rand Institute and VP R&D Shahar Samocha, a former engineer at Apple and Israeli blockchain company Starkware. They have been joined by employees from Starkware and other companies where they used to work.

According to PitchBook, one of the investors in Attestable is TLV Partners, an Israeli venture capital firm founded by former Pitango partners Rona Segev and Eitan Bek, which has attracted at least one major US fund, which rarely invests in Israel.

The industry expects Attestable to develop technology that will verify the authenticity of data in the AI era. The technology could be particularly effective for collaborative work between AI agents, a type of intelligent software capable of performing tasks performed by human workers, such as producing a document, developing software code or providing customer service. Attestable’s security layer will help companies and organizations ensure that digital agents do not misuse incorrect data produced by one of them or by another malicious agent.

The concern that is emerging among AI experts is that AI will allow for the production of incorrect data that appears to be authentic, or for incorrect data to be presented as if it was produced by an authentic person. Apparently, Attestable is interested in bringing to the AI stage a technology from the world of blockchain, known as “Zero Knowledge Proof”, which allows digital financial networks to verify the identity of the account holder or the authenticity of the financial data transmitted by ensuring its correctness, while providing minimal data to the other party.

Not the first to leave

This is by no means the first senior departure from Sutskever’s SSI. Last year, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg convinced SSI CEO Daniel Gross to leave his position and join the social network to help develop its AI strategy. After his departure, Sutskever stepped into his shoes as CEO.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on February 5, 2026.

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