Minerva emerges with $10M for Roger, a VR-piloted humanoid for bomb disposal and oil rigs

Minerva Humanoids, a San Francisco start-up, came out of stealth on October 6, 2026 with about $10 million in pre-seed funding led by General Catalyst, with Long Journey Ventures and Credo Ventures as co-leads. Hugging Face, Codecademy, RunwayVC and Compound also invested. Its robot, Roger, is a semi-autonomous humanoid for work that is dangerous for people: offshore oil rigs, high-voltage power plants, explosive ordnance disposal and hazardous-materials response.

Roger is not meant to work alone. A trained specialist steers it through a VR headset, sees what the robot sees and carries out fine manipulation from a distance, while Minerva’s software handles balance, fall recovery and navigation.

Why keep a human in the loop?

Because the jobs Minerva is targeting are rare, varied and high-consequence, which is the worst case for an autonomous policy and the best case for a remote operator. Bomb disposal teams already use tracked robots driven from a distance; Minerva’s pitch is that a humanoid body can use the same tools, doors and ladders as the person it stands in for. Operators reportedly learn full-body control within minutes. The company estimates that about 7,000 energy workers die on the job each year. “We didn’t set out to replace the people doing them,” Felber said of those jobs.

The approach is part of a wider teleoperation-first strand in humanoids, from interface companies such as Enigma to Korea’s Robros, which added full-body teleoperation to IGRIS-C. Minerva also has a hazardous-operations lead from outside robotics: Dominic Asquith, a British Special Forces veteran.

Where has Roger been tested?

Minerva says it has shown Roger at the NATO Explosive Ordnance Disposal Centre of Excellence in Slovakia, is researching energy-sector robotics with Abu Dhabi’s MBZUAI, and is working with the University of Waterloo on vision in smoke and darkness. It has completed on-site public-safety testing and is exploring deployments at two of the world’s ten busiest airports. None of these is a paid deployment yet; the first paid pilots are due this autumn.

The supply chain is part of the pitch. Minerva builds prototypes in Germany and plans to manufacture in both Germany and the US without relying on single-source Chinese components, a point that matters to defence and critical-infrastructure buyers working under the tightening US rules on Chinese robots.