Insider Brief
- Minerva Humanoids emerged from stealth with about $10 million in pre-seed funding to develop semi-autonomous humanoid robots for hazardous work in energy, public safety and explosive ordnance disposal.
- General Catalyst led the round, with Long Journey Ventures and Credo Ventures as co-leads, and Minerva plans to use the funding to advance its robot hardware and AI systems as it begins its first paid pilots this fall.
- Minerva’s Roger humanoid uses remote human control with AI handling balance, fall recovery and navigation, with the company targeting hazardous energy work, high-voltage facilities, explosive ordnance disposal and hazardous-material response.
Minerva Humanoids emerged from stealth with about $10 million in pre-seed funding to develop semi-autonomous humanoid robots for hazardous work in energy operations and public safety.
According to the startup, General Catalyst led the round, with Long Journey Ventures and Credo Ventures serving as co-leads. Other investors included MVP Ventures, Kaya, RunwayVC, Compound, Founders Embassy, Hugging Face, Codecademy, YG, Walter Ventures, Tiny Ventures, Chaotica and Babylon.
The company said the financing will support development of its robot hardware and AI systems as it begins its first paid pilots this fall. Founded at the end of 2025, Minerva is headquartered in San Francisco and also has offices in Cambridge, Mass., and Sindelfingen, Germany.
Minerva Humanoid’s First Robot Roger
Minerva’s first robot, Roger, is designed to let trained specialists perform dangerous tasks remotely rather than enter hazardous areas themselves. The company is initially targeting:
- Onshore and offshore oil and gas operations
- High-voltage facilities
- Explosive ordnance disposal
- Hazardous-material response
Rather than trying to remove the human operator entirely, Minerva uses a semi-autonomous system that keeps a specialist in control of critical actions. An operator wears a virtual-reality headset to see through the robot’s cameras and control its movements and manipulation from a remote location.
Roger was developed specifically for those types of environments rather than as a general-purpose humanoid. Minerva said it went from its initial concept to a walking prototype in five months, including the robot’s design, manufacturing and assembly.
The company’s Minerva Intelligence software handles functions including balance, fall recovery and navigation. It also translates the operator’s movements into actions by the robot, while low-latency control systems are intended to provide quick responses during manipulation.
Minerva said the approach is designed for jobs where existing robots may lack the mobility or two-handed dexterity needed to complete more involved work. In explosive ordnance disposal, for example, the company is focused on tasks that may otherwise require a technician to approach a device when a conventional wheeled robot cannot finish the job.
Made in U.S. & Germany
The company said its software and AI are primarily developed in the U.S., while its first Roger prototypes are manufactured and assembled in Germany. Minerva plans to produce future robots in both Germany and the U.S. and said it intends to avoid relying on single-source Chinese components.
Minerva was founded by CEO Sandor Felber and Chief Technology Officer Maurice Rahme. Felber previously worked on humanoid robotics research at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and on Tesla’s Optimus program. Rahme spent six years at Boston Dynamics and was one of the technical leads on the Stretch robot as it moved from prototype development into commercial deployment.
“People are dying every day doing jobs the rest of the world takes for granted,” noted Felber. “We didn’t set out to replace the people doing them. We set out to build a robot that lets them do the job efficiently from the comfort of their office or home, without asking them to risk their lives for our safety or our energy.”
Before its formal launch, Minerva demonstrated its technology at the NATO Explosive Ordnance Disposal Centre of Excellence in Samorin, Slovakia, according to the company. Minerva also tested its system on-site for high-risk public-safety applications at airports and said it is exploring deployments at two of the world’s 10 busiest airports.
Minerva indicated it is also working with academic partners on problems tied to hazardous environments. It established a research partnership with Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence focused on humanoid capabilities for the energy sector and another with the University of Waterloo covering robot perception in smoke, darkness, sensor failure and other situations where normal vision may be limited.
