Manus Parent Butterfly Effect Closes $500M+ Round After Unwinding Meta Acquisition

Butterfly Effect, the parent company of Chinese AI startup Manus, said on Thursday it has completed a funding round of more than $500 million, marking its return as an independent company after unwinding a takeover by Meta Platforms.

The round was co-led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, with existing investors Tencent, Sequoia China and ZhenFund also participating, according to Reuters.

Manus builds general-purpose AI agents that can autonomously carry out tasks such as research, writing in-depth reports, preparing presentation slides, and building apps and websites with minimal human input. The company has become one of the most closely watched names in the global race to build autonomous AI agents.

Meta agreed to acquire Manus for more than $2 billion last December, at a time when the startup was generating more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

In April, Beijing ordered Meta to unwind the acquisition amid tightening scrutiny of US investment in Chinese startups developing advanced AI technologies, citing concerns over export controls, foreign investment rules and the loss of AI talent to the West.

The separation has been messy. Meta announced it was cutting ties with the startup in June, and Manus told users in August that they would need to export and back up their data because it had to delete data created after the acquisition to comply with regulatory requirements in certain jurisdictions.

In August, Manus said it would resume operating as an independent company, with its founding team still in charge.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the company's founders and early backers bought back Meta's shares at a valuation of around $2 billion, and reports in September indicated the new round was being raised at roughly $4 billion.

The Information reported in June that Manus's annualised revenue run rate had surged to about $500 million, up from $100 million when Meta acquired it.

The fresh capital lands as the AI agent race intensifies. Nikkei Asia reported that Manus is boosting its China team as competition in the sector accelerates.

The startup moved most of its China-based staff to Singapore in mid-2025 after receiving investment from a California-based venture capital firm, and it now operates primarily out of Singapore.

Manus is also said to be weighing a corporate restructuring as a step toward a potential listing in Hong Kong, a move that would make it one of the first pure-play AI agent companies to go public in the region.

The deal has become a test case for how far Beijing will go to keep strategic AI technology and talent inside China, and Manus's successful return to independence may set a template for other Chinese startups caught between US capital and Chinese regulators.

For now, the startup has both the cash and the momentum to compete with well-funded rivals from OpenAI, Anthropic and other Chinese agent developers.

With a $500 million war chest and reported revenue growing fivefold since the Meta deal, Manus enters the next phase of the agent race as an independent company with something to prove.