Meta is closing the deal at more than $2 billion, according to people familiar with the acquisition. Manus was chasing a fresh fundraising round at a $2 billion valuation when Meta rocked up, some of those people said.
The acquisition is one of the more high-profile examples of a major US tech firm buying an AI product built in Asia’s startup ecosystem. Manus built a following after previewing an AI agent in March that could produce detailed research reports and build custom websites.
It leaned on AI models from firms such as Anthropic and China’s Alibaba, and the demo landed soon after DeepSeek’s China-made model rattled Silicon Valley. DeepSeek’s developer claimed it was built with far less computing power than American rivals.
The deal marks a new direction for Meta, which is spending hard on AI to compete with Google, Microsoft and OpenAI. It nudges Meta deeper into AI agents, the tool-making trench war in which companies promise to handle complex tasks with minimal human input.
Microsoft already has a popular AI assistant called Copilot, so Meta is hardly wandering into an empty room. Meta says it plans to keep operating and selling Manus’s service, then fold it into its social media products.
Meta said “We plan to scale this service to many more businesses,” in its announcement about the deal.
Meta’s existing AI features are widely available for free in Instagram and WhatsApp, and analysts say it has baked AI into advertising in ways that have fattened margins. After Meta hit unexpected challenges earlier this year while prepping a new model, Meta's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, went on a recruiting blitz for an AI “dream team”, dangling multimillion-dollar paydays.
The company bought a 49 per cent stake in Scale AI, which was valued at $29 billion, and Scale founder Alexandr Wang joined Meta as its chief AI officer. Manus has attracted millions of users since its spring launch, including subscribers who pay for analysis, coding, and other tasks.
In April, Manus raised $75 million in a round led by Benchmark, and Benchmark general partner Chetan Puttagunta joined the board. After that investment, people familiar with the matter said Manus’s valuation jumped to $500 million, with HSG, ZhenFund and Tencent also listed as major investors.
In December, the startup said it had crossed $100 million in annual recurring revenue, eight months after launch, and Meta began acquisition talks around the same time.
Manus, co-founder and chief executive Xiao "Red" Hong, said: “Joining Meta allows us to build on a stronger, more sustainable foundation without changing how Manus works or how decisions are made.
Manus’s parent, Butterfly Effect, was founded in 2022 with offices in Beijing and Wuhan, and it started developing Manus in October 2024. Most researchers and engineers were based in China, but Manus launched outside the country because it used American AI models that are not available in China.
After Benchmark invested, the company officially shifted its headquarters to Singapore. US lawmakers have criticised Benchmark for backing an AI company with ties to China, and Manus has shelved plans for a China-market version, people familiar with the matter said.
Manus has about 100 employees, mainly in Singapore.
