Manus (Butterfly Effect)

What Manus is

Manus is an AI startup that builds AI agents — systems that break a goal into steps, call tools and carry out multi-step work on a user's behalf, rather than only answering a single question. The company is based in Singapore. Its parent company, Butterfly Effect, was founded in Beijing in 2022 ^[1][2]. Its founders are Hong, Yichao Ji and Tao Zhang ^[2].

Debut

Manus debuted in spring 2025 with a demo video showing an AI agent screening job candidates, planning vacations and analysing stock portfolios, and claimed at the time to outperform OpenAI's Deep Research ^[1]. What the video put on display was not a single reply but a task handed over to software and carried through to the end.

Funding

In April 2025 Benchmark led a $75 million round at a $500 million post-money valuation, with general partner Chetan Puttagunta joining the board ^[1]. A post-money valuation counts the new money as already in the company, so it prices the business at the moment the round closes. Tencent, ZhenFund and HSG, formerly Sequoia China, had already invested through a $10 million round ^[1].

Users and revenue

In mid-December 2025 the company said it had signed up millions of users and was generating annual recurring revenue of more than $100 million from subscriptions ^[1]. Annual recurring revenue takes subscription income and expresses it as a yearly figure; it measures the scale of a subscription business rather than one-off sales. Around mid-2025 Manus moved its headquarters from China to Singapore ^[2].

The Meta deal

Meta agreed to buy Manus for about $2 billion and said it would keep the startup running independently while weaving its agents into Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp ^[1]. By March 2026 about 100 Manus employees had moved into Meta's Singapore offices, and CEO Xiao Hong reported directly to Meta COO Javier Olivan ^[2].

The deal is blocked

China's National Development and Reform Commission said it had prohibited foreign investment in the Manus project and required the parties to withdraw the acquisition ^[2].

Independent again

In August 2026 Manus resumed independent operations and said it was required to delete some user data as part of the split ^[3]. Its parent said it raised more than $500 million in a round led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, with Tencent, HSG and ZhenFund also participating ^[3].

Products

Manus launched Manus 2.0 and a stand-alone app called Cue that gives personal AI agents their own email addresses, phone numbers, digital wallets and computers ^[3].

Where it sits

The public record of Manus runs from a company founded in Beijing, to a headquarters moved to Singapore, to an acquisition agreed with Meta, to a Chinese regulator ordering that acquisition withdrawn, to a return to independence backed by a new round ^[1][2][3]. For anyone following AI agents, the case holds three things in one place: what an agent product looks like, how far subscription revenue can go, and which approvals a cross-border deal has to pass through.