Manus raises over $500 million in first funding round since Meta deal collapsed

Over $500 million led by Boyu and IDG

Butterfly Effect, the parent company of Chinese AI lab Manus, said in a WeChat post on Thursday that it has raised more than $500 million, according to TechCrunch. It is the startup's first funding round since Meta was forced to call off its $2 billion acquisition of the company.

Boyu Capital and IDG Capital led the round, with existing shareholders Tencent, HSG (formerly known as Sequoia China), ZhenFund and others also participating. Manus said it plans to continue hiring both in China and abroad.

The company did not disclose its valuation. TechCrunch reports that as recently as last month the startup was said to be in talks with investors to raise $500 million at a $4 billion valuation. Manus did not respond to TechCrunch's questions about the figure.

A deal that regulators killed

The funding round caps an unusual arc for the startup. Manus went viral following a demo of its AI agent last year, then relocated its staff to Singapore in mid-2025 before announcing a $2 billion acquisition by Meta that December. At the time of the deal, the startup was said to be pulling in more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

According to TechCrunch, Chinese authorities ordered the startup in April to unwind the deal, amid intensifying concern in China about losing AI talent and researchers to the West. Manus resumed independent operations in August following the end of the Meta deal, and said it was required to delete some user data as part of the separation. The company is also reported to be considering going public in Hong Kong.

Agents, coding tools and an app called Cue

Manus builds AI products and agents comparable to what Cursor, Lovable and Replit offer. Its lineup includes a chatbot and vibe-coding tools that let users build apps and websites, create designs and presentations, generate video and more.

The company recently launched Manus 2.0, which it says brings a new architecture with new products and capabilities built around a new harness. It also introduced Cue, a standalone app that gives personal AI agents their own email addresses, phone numbers, digital wallets and computers. Within limits set by the user, agents on Cue can communicate, handle tasks across services and make payments.

Why it matters

The round is a vote of confidence in Manus as an independent company after regulators redirected its fate. A startup that was months away from being absorbed into a US tech giant is now funded to compete on its own, with a reported Hong Kong listing potentially on the horizon.

It also shows how state intervention is reshaping the AI industry's structure: China's decision to block the sale, driven by worries about talent draining to the West, has produced a well-funded domestic competitor rather than a Meta subsidiary. For the crowded market of AI agents and coding tools, the injection of more than $500 million means one more serious player with capital to hire globally.

Cue points in another direction worth watching: an early commercial attempt to give agents persistent digital identities, wallets and spending authority, bounded only by limits users set themselves.