Manus has raised more than $500 million in its first funding round since U.S.-based Meta Platforms was forced to abandon its acquisition of the company. Manus was founded in 2022 in China by Xiago Hong (also known as Red Xiao), a Chinese Entrepreneur and Software Engineer who is also the CEO of Butterfly Effect, with Henry Yang, Tao Zhang, and Yichao Peak Ji as co-founders. Manus makes AI products and agents similar to what companies like Cursor, Lovable, and Replit offer. It offers a chatbot and vibe-coding tools to let users build apps and websites, create designs and presentations, generate video, and more.
The Wall Street Journal & Bloomberg reported last month that Manus was set to double its valuation in its financing round to $4 billion. Bloomberg said a valuation at that level would make Manus China’s most valuable AI agent developer. Chinese authorities previously blocked Meta’s attempt to acquire Manus for $2 billion. Meta had been working to integrate Manus’s team and technology into its own systems, but the deal collapsed due to China’s intervention.
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The Wall Street Journal also reported that Manus is weighing a corporate restructuring to prepare for a possible initial public offering in Hong Kong. The company has not publicly commented on those plans. Meta announced the acquisition in December, when Manus was reportedly generating more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue.
