Meta Platforms has agreed to acquire Manus, a Singapore-based AI startup, in a deal valued at roughly $2 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The acquisition gives Meta control of one of the most closely watched AI agent platforms to emerge in the past year and adds a business with meaningful revenue at a time when returns on AI investment are under scrutiny.
Manus drew attention last spring after releasing a demo video showing an AI agent capable of screening job candidates, planning travel, and analyzing stock portfolios. The company claimed its system outperformed OpenAI’s Deep Research on certain tasks, helping it gain rapid visibility in Silicon Valley.
In April, venture capital firm Benchmark led a $75 million funding round that valued Manus at $500 million post-money. Benchmark general partner Chetan Puttagunta joined the company’s board. Chinese media later reported that Tencent, ZhenFund, and HSG, formerly Sequoia China, had also invested through an earlier $10 million round.
Since launch, Manus has reported signing up millions of users and generating more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue from monthly and yearly subscriptions. That traction appears to have prompted Meta’s interest. The Wall Street Journal reported that Meta agreed to pay the valuation Manus was seeking for its next funding round.
Strategic Fit and Political Scrutiny
For Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, the acquisition offers a concrete example of an AI product that is already monetizing at scale. Meta has committed tens of billions of dollars to AI infrastructure, part of an industry-wide spending surge that has unsettled some investors concerned about long-term returns.
Meta said Manus will continue to operate independently while its AI agents are integrated across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Meta AI is already available across those platforms, and Manus’ task-oriented agents could expand use cases beyond conversational assistants into productivity and commerce.
The deal also carries geopolitical considerations. Manus’ founders are Chinese nationals who established its parent company, Butterfly Effect, in Beijing in 2022 before relocating operations to Singapore in mid-2025. The company’s earlier Chinese investment has already drawn attention from U.S. lawmakers.
Senator John Cornyn, a Republican member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, previously criticized Benchmark over its investment in Manus, raising concerns about U.S. capital supporting companies with Chinese roots. Cornyn has been a vocal advocate for tighter oversight of technology investment tied to China, a stance that has gained bipartisan support in Congress.
Meta has moved to address those concerns. The company told Nikkei Asia that following the acquisition, Manus will sever ties with Chinese investors and cease operations in China. A Meta spokesperson said there will be no continuing Chinese ownership interests after the transaction.
The acquisition also aligns with Meta’s broader AI roadmap. The company is developing new image, video, and text models under its superintelligence lab for release in the first half of 2026, while Meta AI has also begun partnering with major news publishers to deliver real-time global and entertainment coverage, signaling a push to pair advanced AI capabilities with fresh content and monetizable use cases across its platforms.
