Meta acquires Manus, Chinese AI agent startup that hit $100M revenue in record time

Zuck buys Chinese AI company Manus

Meta will acquire made-in-China AI outfit Manus and harness its "general agent" technology across its products. Manus debuted in March 2025 and immediately pitched itself as a leap beyond generative AI chatbots, which it characterizes as best suited to summarizing information and answering questions. The outfit promotes its own services as enabling "wide research and context-aware reasoning to produce actionable results in the format you need." To illustrate that promise, Manus offers a scenario in which users ask its tech to select the best candidate for an job by evaluating job applications stored in a .ZIP file. Manus can open that archive, read the files it contains, evaluate them according to user-defined criteria, then produce a document that ranks candidates by suitability for the role. The service does that in its own "computer" - a cloud-hosted VM - that Manus says "operates as a multi-agent system powered by several distinct models." Manus was created by a Chinese company called Butterfly Effect, which also operates an entity in Hong Kong an recently moved its headquarters to Singapore. The outfit recently claimed to have $100 million annual recurring revenue just eight months after launch. Meta's announcement of the deal states: "Manus is already serving the daily needs of millions of users and businesses worldwide" and reveals the made-in-China company's staff will join the social networking giant. The value of the deal was not disclosed. Manus hailed its acquisition as "validation of our pioneering work with General AI Agents." "Our solution is driving value for millions of users worldwide today. With time, we hope to expand this subscription to the millions of businesses and billions of people on Meta's platforms," Manus's post states, before adding a canned quote from CEO Xiao Hong who said joining the Zuckosphere represents a chance to "build on a stronger, more sustainable foundation without changing how Manus works or how decisions are made." "We're excited about what the future holds with Meta and Manus working together and we will continue to iterate the product and serve users that have defined Manus from the beginning." Meta boss-for-life Mark Zuckerberg wants to build a "superintelligence" service, which he defines as software "that knows us deeply, understands our goals, and can help us achieve them." In pursuit of that goal, Meta has committed to at least $70 billion of capital expenditure in 2025 and expects to spend more next year, much of it going towards building datacenters to host AI workloads. While the company credits AI with helping it to improve advertising revenue, Meta does not currently offer a paid AI service but is reportedly testing a subscription product called "Meta AI+". Manus seems a good fit for that offering, and perhaps also a step towards superintelligence. The deal is the fifth AI-related acquisition Meta has made in 2025, following its purchases of AI startups PlayAI and WaveForms, accelerator developer Rivos, and wearable device developer Limitless. The social networking giant has also dangled eight-figure compensation packages to lure top AI talent to the company. ®

Meta to acquire Chinese startup Manus to boost advanced AI features

Dec 29 (Reuters) - Meta (META.O), opens new tab said on Monday it would acquire Chinese artificial intelligence startup Manus, as the technology giant accelerates efforts to integrate advanced AI across its platforms. Tech giants such as Meta have been ramping up AI investments through strategic acquisitions and talent hires as they navigate fierce industry competition. Earlier this year, the Facebook-owner invested in Scale AI in a deal valuing the data-labeling startup at $29 billion and bringing in its 28-year-old CEO, Alexandr Wang. Financial terms of its deal with Manus were not released. Singapore-based Manus makes general-purpose AI agent, which can operate as a digital employee, executing tasks such as research and automation independently and with minimal prompts. Meta will operate and sell the Manus service, as well as integrate it into its consumer and business products, including in Meta AI, the company said. Earlier this year, Manus launched its AI agent, claiming that its performance surpasses that of OpenAI's AI agent, DeepResearch. The company, part of Beijing Butterfly Effect Technology Ltd Co, has marketed its product by completing dozens of tasks for users on X for free. Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Meta Platforms buys Manus to bolster its agentic AI skillset - SiliconANGLE

Meta Platforms buys Manus to bolster its agentic AI skillset Meta Platforms Inc. is pushing into autonomous artificial intelligence agents with the acquisition of Singapore-based Manus, which made headlines when it first emerged earlier this year for its ability to perform tasks using a web browser without human supervision. Manus shot to fame in March, just weeks after China's DeepSeek Ltd. shocked the world with its low-cost alternative to OpenAI Group PBC's ChatGPT. It was one of the first AI agents to be made widely available to everyday users through a subscription service, and it made a huge splash on social media for its ability to perform complicated tasks such as creating resumes, writing software applications and designing and building websites. It also demonstrated impressive research capabilities. In one video posted on X, a user asked Manus to find them a suitable two-bedroom apartment in their desired location and it immediately set about generating a comprehensive list of available real estate, complete with evaluations of local crime rates and commute times to different parts of the city. Manus was one of the first in a wave of AI agents that have taken the enterprise world by storm this year, and nowadays they're pretty common as everyone has jumped onto the bandwagon in an effort to fulfill the promise of AI work automation. For instance, coding agents like CodeGPT, GitHub Copilot, Replit and Jules have transformed software development, while companies such as Salesforce Inc. and ServiceNow Inc. have launched fleets of AI agents designed to automate work across industry verticals. Manus is much more of a general-purpose agent, and although the headlines have since died down, it has reportedly built on its initial success after raising $75 million in funding in April. In a brief blog post announcing today's acquisition, Meta said Manus has processed more than 147 trillion tokens this year and created over 80 million virtual computers while serving "millions of users and businesses" globally. The startup, which was initially based in China before moving to Singapore in the summer, says it reached $100 million in annually recurring revenue just eight months after its launch, making it the first startup anywhere to achieve this milestone in such a rapid timeframe. Most of its revenue stems from paid subscribers. In its announcement, Meta said it will continue to operate and sell the Manus agent as a separate offering for the time being, while also integrating its technology into its own ecosystem, including its Meta AI platform. That could expand the reach of Manus's technology to billions of users globally. "Joining Meta allows us to build on a stronger, more sustainable foundation without changing how Manus works or how decisions are made," said Manus Chief Executive Xiao Hong. The deal suggests Meta is getting more serious about the need to build a viable business around its massive, multibillion dollar investments in AI infrastructure. AI has become the top priority of Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, surpassing his ambitions for the metaverse, but the social media giant has struggled recently, with its Llama family of large language models perceived to have fallen behind rivals such as OpenAI's GPT-5 and Google LLC's Gemini 3. Zuckerberg responded by forming a dedicated AI research division called Meta Superintelligence Labs that's focused on building more advanced models and AI agents. The unit is led by Alexandr Wang, the founder of data labelling startup Scale AI Inc. Meta paid $14 billion to acquire a 49% stake in Scale AI earlier this year in what was effectively an "acquihire" for Wang's services.

Meta acquires Manus to expand AI agent capabilities By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) has acquired Manus, a leading autonomous general-purpose AI agent company, in a move to integrate advanced agent technology across its products. Financial terms of the deal were not announced. Manus, which launched its first General AI Agent earlier this year, has already processed more than 147 trillion tokens and created over 80 million virtual computers. The company currently serves millions of users and businesses worldwide. "Joining Meta allows us to build on a stronger, more sustainable foundation without changing how Manus works or how decisions are made," said Xiao Hong, CEO of Manus. Meta plans to continue operating and selling the Manus service while also integrating it into Meta's product ecosystem, including Meta AI. The acquisition will bring Manus's technology to Meta's billions of users and millions of businesses. The Singapore-based Manus has experienced rapid growth, recently announcing it had reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue just eight months after launch, making it reportedly the fastest startup to achieve this milestone globally. The company's total revenue run rate exceeds $125 million, including usage-based and other revenue. This acquisition comes during what has been described as an intense year for Meta, involving an AI overhaul under CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The company has been restructuring to regain ground in the AI race while reportedly developing new AI models like Mango and Avocado for 2026. Earlier in 2025, Meta formed Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), a dedicated division headquartered in Menlo Park, California, focused on building advanced AI models that integrate deeply into Meta's ecosystem. The division is lead by Alexandr Wang, founder of Scale AI, a data-labelling startup Meta bought a 49% stake in for $14 billion, effectively acquiring Wang's services. Manus will continue to operate from Singapore following the acquisition. Meta has not yet responded to Investing.com's request for comment.

Meta to Acquire Agentic AI Startup Manus

Meta plans to acquire Manus, an artificial intelligence startup based in Singapore. Manus offers a general-purpose AI agent to businesses through a subscription service. The agent is designed to help with research, automation and complex tasks, including market research, coding, and data analysis. Meta said Monday that it will continue to operate and sell the Manus service as well as integrate it into its own consumer and business products, including in Meta AI. Manus said it will continue to operate from Singapore. The companies did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.

Meta to acquire Chinese startup Manus to boost advanced AI features

Dec 29 (Reuters) - Meta said on Monday it would acquire Chinese artificial intelligence startup Manus, as the technology giant accelerates efforts to integrate advanced AI across its platforms. Tech giants such as Meta have been ramping up AI investments through strategic acquisitions and talent hires as they navigate fierce industry competition. Earlier this year, the Facebook-owner invested in Scale AI in a deal valuing the data-labeling startup at $29 billion and bringing in its 28-year-old CEO, Alexandr Wang. Financial terms of its deal with Manus were not released. Singapore-based Manus makes general-purpose AI agent, which can operate as a digital employee, executing tasks such as research and automation independently and with minimal prompts. Meta will operate and sell the Manus service, as well as integrate it into its consumer and business products, including in Meta AI, the company said. Earlier this year, Manus launched its AI agent, claiming that its performance surpasses that of OpenAI's AI agent, DeepResearch. The company, part of Beijing Butterfly Effect Technology Ltd Co, has marketed its product by completing dozens of tasks for users on X for free. (Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)