AI Startup Manus Raises $500 Million After China Nixed Meta’s $2 Billion Acquisition – Decrypt

Briefly
Manus mum or dad Butterfly Impact raised greater than $500 million, led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital with Tencent, HSG and ZhenFund collaborating, in its first spherical since Meta's acquisition collapsed.
Meta introduced a roughly $2 billion buy in December 2025; China's planning company ordered it unwound on April 27, and Manus introduced in August it will resume unbiased operations.
Manus reported $100 million in annual recurring income about eight months after its March 2025 launch; no valuation was disclosed for the brand new spherical.
Manus, the AI agent startup that Meta purchased for about $2 billion earlier than China pressured Meta to present it again, has raised greater than $500 million in recent funding.Its mum or dad firm, Butterfly Impact, confirmed the spherical in a WeChat submit, with Boyu Capital and IDG Capital main and current backers Tencent, HSG (the agency previously often known as Sequoia China) and ZhenFund becoming a member of.Myriad: Which firm can have the very best AI mannequin? Click on to make your prediction.The corporate didn't say the way it will spend the cash, solely that it plans to maintain hiring in China and overseas. Butterfly Impact additionally didn't disclose a valuation, however Bloomberg beforehand reported it was eyeing a $500 million increase at a $4 billion valuation, roughly double what Meta agreed to pay.Manus makes AI brokers, software program that does not simply reply questions like a chatbot however takes a purpose and carries it out by itself, from reserving journeys to analyzing shares. When it launched in March 2025, it offered as a Chinese language rival to OpenAI's $200-a-month agent, open by invitation solely.Demand was frantic: invite codes had been reportedly listed on a Chinese language resale market for as a lot as 10 million yuan, over $1.3 million. Beneath the hood, the corporate acknowledged it used Anthropic's Claude and fine-tuned variations of Alibaba's Qwen fashions alongside its personal.However nonetheless, these had been instances when agentic AI wasn’t actually an enormous deal. Manus was experimenting with that use case earlier than the AI behemoths began engaged on it.BitcoinBTC · USD$81,798−3.52percent24H7D1M1YYTDOct 2Oct 3Oct 5Oct 7Oct 9$86.8k$84.8k$82.8k$80.7k24h HighHigh$83,45924h LowLow$80,427VolVol$1.8BMarket projectionsOdds by Myriad→$50$100$500BuyManus moved its group to Singapore round mid-2025, shutting most of its China operations and shedding dozens of workers in July.By December it had reached $100 million in annual recurring income, the yearly complete of its subscriptions, about eight months after launch. Meta introduced that very same month that it will purchase Manus for roughly $2 billion.Consideration, in the meantime, drifted to OpenClaw, an open-source agent that runs by yourself machine and takes orders by way of apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. OpenClaw collected properly over 100,000 GitHub stars, that are developer bookmarks, inside weeks of going viral.OpenAI then employed OpenClaw's creator, Peter Steinberger, to guide its push into private brokers.China's commerce ministry stated in January it will assess the Manus deal, and by March co-founders Xiao Hong and Ji Yichao had been summoned to Beijing and barred from leaving the nation, per Reuters. On April 27, the Nationwide Improvement and Reform Fee, China's high financial planning company, ordered the deal withdrawn and stated it will “prohibit overseas funding in Manus in accordance with legal guidelines and rules.”Meta lower ties in June. In August, Manus introduced it will function independently once more, deleting some consumer information created on or after December 29, 2025, to separate its programs from Meta's.Meta's personal coding agent, Muse Code, launched that very same month right into a market the place it felt late to the struggle in opposition to Codex and Claude Code. Manus, for its half, now sells Cue, an app that provides brokers their very own telephone numbers and digital wallets, with funds restricted to a funds the consumer units.The Manus case sits inside a wider tightening in Beijing: in Might, China required some senior AI employees at personal corporations, together with Alibaba and DeepSeek, to get approval earlier than touring overseas, as Chinese language AI approaches ranges of high quality and relevance that may compete face to face in opposition to American corporations.Every day Debrief NewsletterStart each day with the highest information tales proper now, plus unique options, a podcast, movies and extra.