Meta acquires AI startup Manus in deal topping $2 billion

Meta has acquired AI startup Manus in a deal valued at more than $2 billion, The Wall Street Journal reports. Manus arrived in March 2025 shortly after Chinese startup DeepSeek. The company, originally called Butterfly Effect, described itself as "the first general AI agent" able to perform complex tasks autonomously.

The acquisition is reportedly one of the largest involving a startup nurtured in China’s AI ecosystem. Manus is known for custom research and website-building agents and draws from several third-party models, particularly Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet and versions of Alibaba's Qwen.

The platform is designed to automate tasks such as market research, coding, sales data analysis and website cloning and creation. The company says "Manu is already serving the daily needs of millions of users and businesses" and reported an annualized average revenue of more than $100 million just eight months after launch.

One skeptic called it "a product devilishly optimized for influencers, which is why it exploded so much." Manus laid off most of its Beijing employees this summer before moving its headquarters to Singapore to expand globally. The company had been seeking a funding round that would have valued it at $2 billion when Meta approached.

Key Topics

AI, Tech, Meta, Acquisition, China, Startups, Automation