Minerva Humanoids Raises $10M Pre-Seed to Build Robots for Dangerous Jobs
General Catalyst led a $10M pre-seed round for Minerva Humanoids, which designs semi-autonomous robots for hazardous energy and public safety operations.
Minerva Humanoids emerged from stealth Tuesday after closing a $10 million pre-seed funding round led by General Catalyst, positioning the startup to develop semi-autonomous humanoid robots built for high-risk environments in the energy and public safety sectors.
The company's core proposition centers on keeping trained human specialists out of harm's way while still preserving their full operational control. Operators direct the robots remotely, executing dangerous tasks without entering hazardous zones themselves — a design philosophy that separates Minerva from fully autonomous humanoid competitors.
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The target markets — energy infrastructure and public safety — represent industries where physical risk to workers remains persistently high and where regulatory and liability pressures make human-free automation difficult to justify without a human-in-the-loop architecture. Minerva's semi-autonomous approach attempts to thread that needle by combining robotic dexterity with expert human judgment delivered from a safe distance.
The General Catalyst-led raise signals continued investor appetite for purpose-built industrial humanoids, a segment that has attracted significant capital as general-purpose robot platforms from larger players struggle to prove reliability in unstructured real-world settings. Minerva's focus on defined, high-stakes verticals may offer a faster path to deployment than broader consumer or warehouse applications.
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