Meta Platforms has acquired Manus, a Singapore-based AI startup that generates over 100 million dollars in annual recurring revenue, in a deal valued at more than 2 billion dollars. The acquisition marks Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's latest bet on artificial intelligence and represents a strategic shift from chatbots to autonomous AI agents that complete tasks with minimal human prompting.
Manus became the talk of Silicon Valley after debuting last spring with a demo video showing an AI agent screening job candidates, planning vacations, and analyzing stock portfolios. The company claimed its technology outperformed OpenAI's Deep Research, attracting immediate attention from top investors.
Venture capital firm Benchmark led a 75 million dollar funding round in April that assigned Manus a 500 million dollar valuation just weeks after launch. Benchmark general partner Chetan Puttagunta joined the startup's board. Chinese media outlets reported other big-name backers had already invested including Tencent, ZhenFund, and HSG formerly known as Sequoia China.
The company announced in mid-December it had signed up millions of users generating annual recurring revenue exceeding 100 million dollars from monthly and yearly subscriptions. Meta started negotiations around this time according to the Wall Street Journal, agreeing to pay 2 billion dollars, the valuation Manus was reportedly seeking for its next funding round.
For Zuckerberg, who has staked Meta's future on AI, Manus represents something new: an AI product actually making money. This proves especially pertinent as investors grow increasingly concerned about Meta's 60 billion dollar infrastructure spending spree and the broader tech industry's debt-backed expenditures on data center construction.
Meta says it will keep Manus running independently while weaving the startup's AI agents into Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp where Meta's own chatbot Meta AI is already available to users. The integration gives Meta functioning agentic AI technology with proven revenue rather than experimental features.
However, the deal faces potential regulatory scrutiny. Manus' Chinese founders established its parent company Butterfly Effect in Beijing in 2022 before relocating to Singapore mid-2025. Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican and senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, already criticized Benchmark's investment in May, raising concerns about American capital flowing to a Chinese concern.
Being tough on China has become one of the few genuinely bipartisan issues in Congress. Cornyn is one of Congress' most vocal hawks on China and technology competition, though he is hardly alone in these concerns.
Meta told Nikkei Asia that after the acquisition, Manus will have no ties to Chinese investors and will no longer operate in China. There will be no continuing Chinese ownership interests in Manus AI following the transaction and Manus AI will discontinue its services and operations in China according to a Meta spokesperson.
The acquisition underscores a broader industry shift from generative AI chatbots to agentic systems capable of executing complex tasks autonomously. Enterprise software companies like Salesforce and ServiceNow have heavily promoted their agent versions as the most effective way for businesses to use emerging AI technology.
Manus had an annual revenue run rate of 125 million dollars earlier this year from selling its AI agent to businesses via subscriptions, giving Meta immediate return on AI spending. The technology can complete general tasks like screening resumes, creating trip itineraries, and analyzing stocks in response to basic instructions.
