AI agent startup Manus has raised more than $500 million in its first funding round since Meta was forced to abandon its acquisition of the company. Private equity firm Boyu Capital and venture investor IDG Capital led the round, with Tencent, HSG and ZhenFund returning as follow-on investors. The raise signals that investors still back Manus despite Beijing's unprecedented block on the Meta deal.
Manus, the AI agent startup once set to be acquired by Meta, has raised more than $500 million in its first funding round since that deal collapsed. Butterfly Effect, the company's parent, said Thursday that Boyu Capital and venture investor IDG Capital led the round, joined by existing shareholders Tencent, HSG and ZhenFund.
The company did not disclose its post-funding valuation. But Bloomberg reported last month that the company was set to double its valuation to $4 billion in this round, which would make it China's most valuable AI agent maker.
A deal Beijing wouldn't allow
The raise suggests investors aren't deterred by Beijing's unprecedented order to block Meta's short-lived $2 billion acquisition of Manus. Meta had already started folding Manus' team and technology into its own systems when Chinese authorities stepped in and blocked the deal. The outcome also shows that appetite for AI-agent startups has held up even as underlying foundation models improve quickly and price competition intensifies.
Dan Wang, China director at Eurasia Group, said the fundraising shows the short-term fallout of the Meta case has been contained and that investors are willing to back Manus as an independent company, pointing to renewed confidence in the commercial potential of AI agents.
Analysts say Manus could eventually pursue a public listing, but the more immediate task is reworking its business and ownership structure to prove profitability and align with Beijing's regulatory requirements. Han Lin, China country director at The Asia Group, said the immediate task for Manus now is proving scale, profitability and regulatory alignment.
Earlier this month, Manus said it had resumed independent operations after splitting from Meta, adding that its founding team would keep pushing forward generative AI agents for users globally.
From blueprint to cautionary tale
Manus launched in early 2025 in China, then moved its staff to Singapore after winning backing from U.S. venture firm Benchmark. Meta announced its acquisition in December, but Chinese regulators later blocked it: the National Development and Reform Commission said it had decided to prohibit foreign investment in the Manus project. By then, Meta had already begun integrating Manus' team and technology into its own.
Since the split, Manus has unveiled Manus 2.0, built on a new in-house execution system called Cascade, and launched Cue, a standalone personal-agent app in which each agent gets its own email address, phone number and mobile wallet. Meta, meanwhile, has pressed ahead with its own personal AI agent, launching Muse in early September, modeled on the open-source AI agent OpenClaw.
According to CNBC, Matthias Hendrichs, a Singapore-based adviser to global AI firms, described the lasting ties between the two companies even after the deal unwound: "You can separate companies, but you cannot make engineers forget what they learned."
Source: CNBC
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