Manus Funding Round: $500M Raise at $4B After Meta Deal Unwinds

A big check for a contested AI agent

Manus, the startup behind the viral general-purpose AI agent of the same name, has closed a funding round of more than $500 million. Private equity firm Boyu Capital led the round, with Tencent Holdings among the other backers. 1 Accounts differ slightly on the lead structure. One report names Boyu and IDG Capital as co-leads, with Tencent, Sequoia China and ZhenFund participating. 2

The round was announced by parent company Butterfly Effect and works out to roughly RMB 3.35 billion. It is described as the largest single investment so far in China's AI application sector. 2 Bloomberg had reported that the deal would value Manus at about $4 billion. That is roughly double what Meta Platforms reportedly offered for the company last December. 1

One account also cites a figure of "approximately $40 billion" before settling on a target valuation of about $4 billion. 2 The $40 billion figure is almost certainly a misstatement. The $4 billion number is consistent across the reporting and is the one to take seriously.

From browser extension to Meta target

Manus rose quickly. The company began in 2022 as Butterfly Effect Co. Ltd. Its first product was a browser extension that let users reach multiple AI models through one interface. 1 In 2024 it raised $10 million and pivoted toward what became the Manus agent. 1

The agent launched in March through an invite-only program. Clips of it carrying out multistep tasks on users' computers spread widely online. 1 That attention drew Benchmark, which put $75 million into the company in April 2025. Manus then moved its headquarters to Singapore. 1

The Meta episode and Beijing's role

The most consequential part of the story is what happened with Meta. The reporting does not fully agree on it.

• One account says only that Meta reportedly made an offer last December. 1
• Another frames the new valuation as rising from a prior level set after Meta's acquisition. 2
• Coverage drawing on Reuters reporting goes further. It describes the Meta deal as unwound by Beijing, and says the arrangement involved a buyback from Meta that Tencent helped fund. 3

Read together, the likeliest picture is this. A Meta transaction advanced far enough to need reversing, and Chinese regulatory pressure helped force that reversal. Tencent's money is part of how Manus bought its way back out. 3 That reframes the round. It is less a routine growth raise than a restructuring that moves a high-profile AI asset back into a Chinese-aligned cap table.

The Tencent angle deserves attention. Having helped finance the buyback, Tencent is reportedly positioned to become Manus's largest shareholder. That would give it significant strategic influence well before any public listing. 3 For a company that once relocated to Singapore and courted a U.S. tech giant, this is a notable shift in where control sits.

Competing with its former suitor

Manus is now aiming at the personal AI assistant market. That puts it in direct competition with Meta's own agent efforts, reported as Muse and Instinct. 2 One headline puts the market's size at around $100 billion. 2 That figure is better treated as a framing estimate than a measured number.

The competitive irony is plain. The company Meta tried to absorb is now raising money to take on Meta's products in the same category.

No near-term exit to validate the price

The sharpest caution concerns timing. According to the Reuters-based reporting, Manus will not start a Hong Kong IPO process until at least 2027. 3 So the roughly $4 billion valuation has no public market to test it any time soon. Investors such as Boyu, IDG and Tencent carry that waiting risk. 3 The same analysis suggests this structure could become a template for other China-linked AI startups that lack a quick cross-border exit. 3

The takeaway

The headline number is about money, but the more durable story is about jurisdiction and control. Manus showed an AI agent startup can go from viral demo to a multibillion-dollar valuation in about a year. Its path also shows the limits on such companies. A deal with a U.S. acquirer apparently could not survive Beijing's scrutiny. The result is a well-funded company drawn closer to Tencent, with no public-market check on its price until at least 2027.

Whether $4 billion holds up will depend on Manus turning early buzz into a durable consumer product against far larger rivals. Investors are betting it can. The structure of this round shows they have accepted a long wait to find out.