Semi-autonomous humanoid lets trained specialists handle hazardous energy and public safety work from a safe distance with full control
Roger
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 06, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Minerva Humanoids, a robotics company building humanoid robots for the world’s most dangerous jobs in onshore and offshore oil and gas operations and public safety, today announced it has raised approximately $10 million in pre-seed funding led by General Catalyst, with Long Journey Ventures and Credo Ventures as co-leads, and participation from MVP Ventures, Kaya, RunwayVC, Compound, Founders Embassy, Hugging Face, Codecademy, YG, Walter Ventures, Tiny Ventures, Chaotica, and Babylon. The round brings Minerva out of stealth as it launches its first paid pilots in the fall.
Founded by CEO Sandor Felber and CTO Maurice Rahme, Minerva designed Roger, its purpose-built semi-autonomous humanoid robot, around the judgment, skill, and dexterity of the highly trained specialists who already perform this work. Roger allows those specialists to apply their expertise while keeping their physical bodies away from the danger, whether that’s responding to a suspected explosive at an airport or performing hazardous work at an energy site.
“People are dying every day doing jobs the rest of the world takes for granted,” said 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.”
Work on offshore rigs, explosive ordnance disposal (EOD), and hazardous material response still puts people directly in harm’s way. Roughly every 75 minutes, an energy worker somewhere in the world tragically falls victim to their job, amounting to around 7,000 deaths a year.¹ The industry has spent decades reducing that risk, yet many tasks still ultimately require a person to enter the danger zone. Public safety teams face the same threat. NATO consistently cites EOD and hazardous material response teams at the highest risk segment of each unit, with technicians relying on decades-old wheeled, single-arm robots that lack the dexterity required for complex tasks.
“Every EOD operator knows the long walk. When the robot can’t complete the task and the operator has to put the EOD suit on and approach the device alone,” said British Special Forces veteran and Head of Hazardous Operations at Minerva Humanoids, Dominic Asquith. “The tracked, single-arm systems we’ve relied on for decades send a lot of people on that walk because the task needs two hands and real dexterity. Roger is a step-change for our community: the operator’s judgement and hands are on the device while their body stays in the safety of the command post. I’d have wanted this on every deployment I did.”
Minerva Intelligence, the company’s proprietary AI control system, manages the humanoid’s balance, fall recovery, and navigation while translating input from a skilled remote operator into action. The specialist operates Roger through a VR headset, allowing them to see through the humanoid’s eyes and perform fine manipulation while staying in command of every critical action. Low-latency control loops keep the response immediate, and operators learn full-body control in a matter of minutes.
The result is the specialist’s capabilities applied in the danger zone, but with one critical difference: the robot takes the physical risk instead of the person.
Minerva is Western sovereign with its software and AI primarily developed in the United States, while its first Roger prototypes are manufactured and assembled in Germany, enabling the company to rapidly iterate on the hardware. Minerva went from an idea to a fully functional walking humanoid in five months, including the bespoke design, manufacturing, and assembly of Roger, purpose-built to complete these critical tasks. The company plans to produce its humanoid robots in both Germany and the United States using a Western industrial base without reliance on single-source Chinese components.
Felber previously played a core role in launching MIT CSAIL’s research line on humanoid robots using AI and worked on Tesla’s Optimus program. Rahme spent six years at Boston Dynamics as one of the technical leads on the Stretch robot, taking it from an early prototype to a commercially deployed product.
“Building a humanoid from scratch is often a years-long project, but Sandor and Maurice did it in less than six months,” said Robin Dechant, partner at General Catalyst. “Shipping hardware at this speed takes physical AI out of the lab and into the world where it matters and builds resiliency into critical sectors by removing people from the most dangerous working environments.”
“Robots can go where no man should,” said Lee Jacobs, partner at Long Journey Ventures. “Minerva is bringing the world robots that will protect the Western world’s critical infrastructure, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to have been their second believer.”
Ahead of its official launch, Minerva completed a showcase and keynote at the NATO Explosive Ordnance Disposal Centre of Excellence in Samorin, Slovakia. The company also established research partnerships with the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) to advance humanoid capabilities for the energy sector and the University of Waterloo to advance humanoid perception in smoke, darkness, sensor failure, and other vision-denied environments. Minerva is also exploring deployments at two of the world’s 10 busiest airports, including completed on-site testing focused on high-risk public safety applications. With this funding, Minerva is further advancing its purpose-built hardware and AI capabilities for energy and EOD applications to support deployments later this year.
¹ Minerva Humanoids estimate based on applying the ILO’s global fatal work accident rate (ILO, A Call for Safer and Healthier Working Environments, 2023: 330,000 deaths across a 3.46 billion labor force) to the IEA’s global energy workforce of 76 million (IEA, World Energy Employment 2025).
About Minerva Humanoids
Minerva Humanoids developed its first prototype of Roger, a purpose-built semi-autonomous humanoid robot, just five months after starting development. Designed for hazardous energy operations, such as offshore oil rigs and high-voltage power plants, as well as public safety applications including explosive ordnance disposal and hazardous material response, Roger keeps a trained specialist’s judgment in control, allowing them to perform critical operations quickly and intuitively while staying away from danger. Its control system leverages Minerva Intelligence, the company’s in-house AI layer for balance, fall recovery, and navigation. Founded at the end of 2025 and headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Sindelfingen, Germany, Minerva is backed by General Catalyst, Long Journey Ventures, Credo Ventures, and additional investors. Learn more at https://www.minervahumanoids.com/.
Media Contact
Mollie Gonzalez
minerva-humanoids@bulleitgroup.com
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/e241da4b-194c-44f4-96d7-250493781b14
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