Sandor Felber

Minerva Humanoids

[Lukas Ziegler @lukas_m_ziegler]

Some jobs shouldn't have a human in them at all! ⚠️

I visited @mnv_humanoids in Stuttgart, who are building humanoids for hazardous industrial and public safety work.

Yesterday they came out of stealth with a ~$10M pre-seed round led by @generalcatalyst, with @LongJourneyVC and @CredoVentures as co-leads.

The founders know the category well. CEO @SandorFelber helped launch MIT CSAIL humanoid research line and worked on Tesla Optimus. CTO Maurice Rahme spent six years at Boston Dynamics as one of the technical leads on Stretch. Together they went from an idea to a walking humanoid in five months.

Yeah, in 5 months!!! 🤯

One of their examples is the render-safe procedure on an unknown drone at an airport.

Today that means a human in a bomb suit walking toward an object nobody has identified yet. Minerva says their robot, Roger, completes the procedure much faster than any existing method.

For a warehouse you can redesign the building around the robot, and plenty of companies do exactly that. A refinery cannot be redesigned. Neither can an offshore platform or an airport apron. The ladders, stairs, hatches, valve wheels and hand tools are already there, built around the human body, and retrofitting them costs more than the automation. So the robot fits the environment instead.

The control architecture splits the work between human and AI. An operator works from a safe distance, potentially from home, while Minerva Intelligence handles balance, locomotion and manipulation assistance underneath. The human keeps the judgement and the domain expertise, but the robot takes the risk.

And every session an operator runs generates training data, so the AI can support them more reliably over time and gradually take on more of the task.

→ Hardware built in Germany, AI and software developed in the Bay Area
→ Teleoperation now, with autonomy increasing as the data accumulates
→ First paid pilots start this fall

Put the machine in danger, not the person. That's the whole product.

What a time to be a robotics guy these days! 😮‍💨

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[Sandor Felber @SandorFelber]

@lukas_m_ziegler @mnv_humanoids @generalcatalyst @LongJourneyVC Spot on 🦿🦾

[Sandor Felber @SandorFelber]

@andreasproesch @mnv_humanoids @Thom_Wolf @shuooo @michelangelo_mv @generalcatalyst @lukas_m_ziegler So glad to have you on board!! 🦾🦿

[Sandor Felber @SandorFelber]

@shuooo 🚀🦾🦿🙌

[Sandor Felber @SandorFelber]

@andreasproesch @michelangelo_mv Very excited to be building this with you!

[Michelangelo @michelangelo_mv]

Our entire society relies on human sacrifice, and we take it completely for granted.

The fuel that got you to work. The power charging the screen you're reading this on. The comfortable temperature in your office today.

Behind all of it are unsung heroes who risk their lives every shift so the rest of us never have to think about it.

They fly out to a freezing oil rig 100 miles out in the North Sea and turn a valve that may or may not have scalding gas behind it.

Every year, over 7,000 people die in hazardous energy operations alone, and many more in jobs that are incredibly dangerous but too important not to do.

But you mean to tell me the entire humanoid industry is RACING to fold laundry and load dishwashers? Are we serious?

Minerva is building humanoids for the world's most dangerous jobs. Explosive atmospheres, arctic weather, toxic leaks, biohazards.

So instead of sending a human, we can send Roger.

Proud believer in @SandorFelber and @moribots since T-1.

Why die when they can’t?

[Sandor Felber @SandorFelber]

@nolan_fey Couldn't be happier for you to have been here with us since the beginning!

[Sandor Felber @SandorFelber]

We're out with Roger.

We started Minerva because the people who keep our lights on and our airports safe still risk their lives.

Roger goes in. The experts stay safe and in control.

From an idea to walking humanoid in five months.

Proud of this team.

We're hiring!

[Minerva Humanoids @mnv_humanoids]

Meet Roger, the humanoid purpose-built to protect human life in the most dangerous jobs across energy and public safety.

The experts stay safe and in control. Roger goes in.

No full autonomy needed.

Roger takes the risk. They get the job done.

Idea to walking in 5 months.

[Sandor Felber @SandorFelber]

@lukas_m_ziegler @mnv_humanoids @lukas_m_ziegler Appreciate it!
Roger's just getting started 🦾

[Sandor Felber @SandorFelber]

@nolan_fey So cool ⚽️

[Sandor Felber @SandorFelber]

@nolan_fey Excited about this!

[Sandor Felber @SandorFelber]

@thejesonlee @moribots I know a guy

[Sandor Felber @SandorFelber]

@jh_naylor @thejesonlee Loading ... ;)

[Sandor Felber @SandorFelber]

@thejesonlee @MinervaHumanoid Coming out of stealth soon 🦾🦿

[Sandor Felber @SandorFelber]

@thejesonlee We are at @MinervaHumanoid

[Sandor Felber @SandorFelber]

@thejesonlee @MinervaHumanoid Come join us in our mission to save human lives in the most dangerous jobs of the planet using humanoids! (Predominantly in energy, power generation, and oil and gas currently)

[Augustine Mavor-Parker @MavorParker]

At Vmax, we are automating the construction of RL environments and the post-training of agents. We are hiring members of technical staff and research fellows. Come join us in SF! (link to apply in comments).

[Sandor Felber @SandorFelber]

We are getting humanoid robots to do real physical work - not demos - and are looking to meet people in robotics & reinforcement learning!

If you’ve shipped robots and know your way around reinforcement learning (locomotion or manipulation), teleoperation, VR, sim-to-real, safety, and latency - message me 5-10 lines about your background and a link to your portfolio/website/GitHub/repo if interested.

[Naman Jain @theBhulawat]

Introducing Bunny - world's first curiosity device for kids

It’s screenfree..it’s portable..

We raised $1M from @spc to reimagine how kids thrive in the age of AI, safely.

Comment 'Bunny'. Our nephew will pick 50 families that get it for free this holiday season…