Manus, the AI agent startup owned by Butterfly Effect, has raised more than USD 500 million in its first funding round since Meta was forced to walk away from its planned acquisition. The company confirmed the raise, and it marks a clear signal that investors are willing to back the firm as a standalone business.
The round was led by Boyu Capital, a private equity firm, and IDG Capital, a venture investor. Existing shareholders Tencent, HSG and ZhenFund also put in follow-on money. The company did not disclose the valuation it now carries after the funding.
The news lands months after a takeover that was meant to fold Manus into one of the world’s largest technology companies, and it puts the agent maker back in charge of its own future.
The raise and its backers
Boyu Capital and IDG Capital led the round, with Tencent, HSG and ZhenFund adding to their existing positions. Manus has not shared a post-funding valuation. Bloomberg reported last month that the company planned to double its valuation to USD 4 billion, a figure that would make it the most valuable AI agent maker in China. If that number holds, the new funding would place Manus among the country’s most closely watched private technology firms.
A deal that Beijing blocked
Meta announced the acquisition of Manus in December, in a transaction valued at roughly USD 2 billion. The company had begun pulling the Manus team and technology into its own systems. Chinese regulators then stepped in and stopped the process. The National Development and Reform Commission said it had decided to prohibit foreign investment in the Manus project, which ended Meta’s plan.
From blueprint to test case
The block changed how the market reads the company. Manus had been treated as a blueprint for Chinese startups chasing global scale. The Meta episode turned it into a test case instead. The firm launched in China in early 2025 and moved its staff to Singapore after winning backing from the US venture firm Benchmark. That move left it caught between regulators in Beijing and Washington.
New products, tougher competition
Earlier this month, Manus said it had resumed independent operations after the split. Its founding team said it will keep building generative AI agents for users around the world. The company has since released Manus 2.0, built on a new in-house execution system called Cascade. It also launched Cue, a standalone personal agent app in which each agent gets its own email address, phone number and mobile wallet. Those launches matter to the funding case, because investors are backing an agent product that must compete as foundation models keep improving at speed. That pace leaves less room for thin wrappers built around another company’s model.
What analysts say
Dan Wang, China director at Eurasia Group, said the raise shows that the short-term fallout of the Meta case has been contained and that investors are willing to back Manus as an independent company. He also pointed to renewed confidence in the commercial potential of AI agents.
What happens next
The nearer task is operational. Han Lin, China country director at The Asia Group, said Manus now has to prove scale, profitability and regulatory alignment. Analysts expect the company to consider a public listing eventually. For now, it must restructure its business and ownership to meet the requirements set in Beijing while showing it can make money. The USD 500 million gives Manus the runway to try.
