On Tuesday, Meta Platforms announced it has acquired Manus, a developer based in Singapore that specializes in general-purpose AI agents, as the technology giant continues to invest heavily in artificial intelligence.
Founded in China and later relocating to Singapore, Manus introduced its first general AI agent earlier this year, capable of performing complex tasks like market research, coding, and data evaluation.
The company reported it had achieved an annualized revenue of over $100 million just eight months post-launch, with its revenue run rate surpassing $125 million.
Meta stated in a press release that the acquisition is designed to hasten AI innovation for businesses and integrate sophisticated automation into its consumer and enterprise offerings, including the Meta AI assistant.
“Manus is currently meeting the daily demands of millions of users and businesses globally … We aim to expand this service to significantly more enterprises,” Meta expressed.
The companies reported that Manus will maintain its subscription service without interruption.
Although additional details of the acquisition were not made public, the Wall Street Journal cited sources familiar with the acquisition stating that the deal was concluded for over $2 billion.
The startup was looking to secure a new fundraising round at a $2 billion valuation when Meta approached them, according to the report.
Manus originated as a project of the Chinese startup Butterfly Effect, also known as Monica.Im, before evolving into an independent entity.
It gained recognition earlier this year for claiming that its chatbot surpassed OpenAI’s Deep Research agent in performance.
The firm secured $75 million in a Series B funding round led by U.S. venture capital firm Benchmark in April, and is backed by Tencent and private equity firm HongShan Capital Group (HSG), previously known as Sequoia, per data from market research firm Tracxn.
Reportedly, the startup dismissed the majority of its staff in Beijing in July before transferring its headquarters to Singapore in June as part of its global expansion strategy.
“Becoming part of Meta enables us to build on a more robust, sustainable foundation without altering how Manus operates or how decisions are made,” stated Xiao Hong, CEO of Manus, in a company statement.
The firm also declared a strategic alliance with Alibaba’s Qwen AI team in March, underscoring its existing connections to Chinese tech firms.
Intense AI Expansion
Meta’s acquisition of Manus aligns with its overall AI strategy to acquire specialized AI startups to capture talent and accelerate its broader AI business, which includes developing its open-source Llama large language models.
For instance, in June, Meta invested $14.3 billion in AI startup Scale AI, a deal that brought its founder and CEO, Alexandr Wang, into Meta’s AI leadership team.
Additionally, earlier this month, Meta acquired AI-wearables startup Limitless, further advancing its AI device strategy.
Regarding Manus, the company’s AI agent tools have attracted interest from several major tech firms. In October, Microsoft commenced testing Manus in Windows 11 PCs, enabling users to create websites from local files.
To date, Manus asserts to have processed over 147 trillion “tokens” of text and data, supporting more than 80 million virtual computers. It offers both free and premium subscription options.
Meta announced that Manus team members will join its teams as it continues to strategically recruit AI talent from startups and other significant competitors, including OpenAI and Google.
