that of Mark Zuckerberg Meta said to have agreed to acquire Manusa fast-growing AI startup with Chinese roots now based in Singapore, in a deal valued at more than $2 billion, according to multiple reports. This latest move highlights two major trends: the massive scale of AI spending among Silicon Valley companies and the geopolitical sensitivities around companies and startups founded in China.
Manusin case you didn’t know, builds AI “agents” that can perform complex digital tasks for consumers and businesses. The idea here is that Manus will essentially integrate its technology into Meta’s products, including the Meta AI assistant which crosses Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The deal marks one of the first major instances of a key U.S. tech player buying a China-founded startup, making it something of a litmus test for cross-border deals of this type, particularly in the AI space.
Manus launched just three years ago, in 2022. It began as a project of Butterfly Effect, aka Monica.im, a Beijing-based startup before moving its headquarters to Singapore earlier this year with the aim of expanding globally. Manus’ AI agentnotably, can screen resumes, plan trips, analyze stock portfolios, and manage other multi-step tasks with minimal human intervention, positioning it as a sort of virtual colleague rather than a simple chatbot.
Manus has experienced explosive growth in his brief life so far. Just over a week ago, Manus published a blog post claiming it had reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue and achieved a run rate of $125 million, largely driven by subscriptions and power users. The company also says Microsoft tested Manus on Windows 11 PCs this year to help users create websites and other content from their local files.
The big picture of Meta
For Meta, the Manus deal is the latest in a series of multibillion-dollar bets aimed at turning heavy infrastructure spending on AI chips and data centers into commercially viable products. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg called AI the company’s top priority: Meta continues to invest heavily in its Llama family of open source language models, and made a significant strategic investment in Scale AI earlier this year, even tapping the startup Alexandr Wang, 28-year-old billionaire founder to lead Meta’s broader AI efforts.
The acquisition also unwinds Manus’ ownership ties with China. While the startup has received support from Chinese investors such as Tencent, ZhenFund and HSG (formerly Sequoia Capital China), a Meta spokesperson said Nikkei Asia: “There will be no more Chinese participation in Manus AI after the transaction, and Manus AI will cease its services and operations in China.” A spokesperson for Meta did not immediately respond to Fortunee request for comment.
Of course, this move to separate Manus from China should help Meta avoid the eye and wrath of American politicians and regulators. John Cornyn, a 73-year-old Republican senator from Texas, criticized American venture capital firm Benchmark Capital in May for joining a $75 million funding round for Manus, by asking and answering a hypothetical question about X: “Who thinks it’s a good idea for US investors to subsidize our biggest adversary in AI, only to have the CCP use that technology to challenge us economically and militarily? Not me.”
Manus founder and CEO Xiao Hong pitched the sale as a way to scale technology globally. “The era of AI that not only speaks but acts, creates and produces is only beginning,” he said on social media. according to Al Jazeera. “Now we have the opportunity to build it on a scale we could never have imagined.”
Meta said it would keep the Manus service operational while integrating the team of around 100 employees into its broader AI organization.