Mark Zuckerberg has struck once more.
Meta Platforms is buying Manus, a Singapore-based AI startup that’s change into the speak of Silicon Valley because it debuted final spring with a demo video that confirmed an AI agent doing issues like screening job candidates, planning holidays, and analyzing inventory portfolios. Manus claimed on the time that it outperformed OpenAI’s Deep Analysis.
In April 2025, simply weeks after launch, enterprise capital agency Benchmark led a $75 million funding spherical that assigned Manus a post-money valuation of $500 million, and noticed Benchmark normal associate Chetan Puttagunta becoming a member of the startup’s board. Per Chinese language media shops, another big-name backers had already invested in Manus at that time, together with Tencent, ZhenFund, and HSG (previously often known as Sequoia China) through a $10 million spherical.
The corporate just lately introduced it has since signed up hundreds of thousands of customers and was producing annual recurring income of greater than $100 million.
That’s when Meta began negotiating with Manus, in keeping with the WSJ, which says the tech large is paying $2 billion — the valuation Manus was reportedly looking for for its subsequent funding spherical.
For Zuckerberg, who has staked Meta’s future on AI, Manus represents one thing new: an AI product that’s truly earning money. That is particularly pertinent on condition that traders have grown more and more twitchy about Meta’s $60 billion infrastructure spending spree, and the broader tech trade’s debt-backed expenditures on knowledge heart building.
Meta says it’ll hold Manus operating independently, and weave the startup’s AI brokers into Fb, Instagram and WhatsApp, the place Meta’s personal chatbot, Meta AI, is already obtainable to customers.
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There’s one wrinkle, nonetheless: Manus’ Chinese language founders based its dad or mum firm, Butterfly Impact, in Beijing in 2022, earlier than decamping to Singapore in the midst of 2025. Whether or not that raises flags in Washington stays to be seen, however Senator John Cornyn has already dragged Benchmark for its funding within the firm, elevating considerations again in Could about American capital going to a Chinese language concern.
Cornyn, a Texas Republican and senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has lengthy been certainly one of Congress’ most vocal hawks on China and know-how competitors, however he’s hardly alone. Being robust on China has change into a genuinely bipartisan difficulty in Congress.
Unsurprisingly, Meta has already instructed Nikkei Asia that after the acquisition, Manus gained’t have any ties to Chinese language traders and can now not function in China. “There will probably be no persevering with Chinese language possession pursuits in Manus AI following the transaction, and Manus AI will discontinue its companies and operations in China,” a Meta spokesperson instructed the outlet.
