Minerva leaves stealth with ~$10M to put specialists behind VR, not blast suits

In short: Minerva Humanoids emerged from stealth on Oct 6, 2026 with about $10 million in pre-seed funding led by General Catalyst (Long Journey and Credo co-led). Its first robot, Roger, is a semi-autonomous humanoid built so energy and public-safety specialists can work through a VR headset while the machine takes the physical risk.

The product bet

• Minerva Intelligence handles balance, fall recovery and navigation; the human keeps fine manipulation via low-latency teleoperation.
• Target jobs: offshore oil & gas, explosive ordnance disposal (EOD), hazmat — work where wheeled single-arm robots often force operators into a "long walk" in a blast suit.
• Hardware: first Roger prototypes assembled in Germany; software/AI primarily U.S.; Western supply chain goal. Idea to walking prototype in five months.
• Founders: CEO Sandor Felber (MIT CSAIL humanoids / Tesla Optimus) and CTO Maurice Rahme (Boston Dynamics Stretch lead). Showcase at NATO EOD Centre of Excellence; research ties with MBZUAI and University of Waterloo; airport public-safety tests underway.

Why it matters

Most humanoid pitches chase warehouses or homes. Minerva is selling kept-alive specialists — judgment in the loop, body out of the blast radius — a narrower but clearer path for embodied AI in critical infrastructure.