Mark Zuckerberg has made another bold move.
Meta Platforms is set to acquire Manus, a Singapore-based AI start-up that has been a major talking point in Silicon Valley since its debut last spring. The company drew attention with a demo video showcasing AI agents capable of screening job candidates, planning holidays, and analysing stock portfolios — with Manus claiming performance that surpassed OpenAI’s Deep Research at the time.
Just weeks after launching, Manus secured a $75m funding round led by Benchmark in April, giving the start-up a post-money valuation of $500m. The deal also saw Benchmark general partner Chetan Puttagunta take a seat on the board. According to Chinese media reports, several high-profile investors had already backed Manus through an earlier $10m round, including Tencent, ZhenFund and HSG, formerly known as Sequoia China.
By mid-December, the company revealed it had attracted millions of users and was generating more than $100m in annual recurring revenue from monthly and annual subscriptions to its membership service.
It was around this period that Meta began talks with Manus. The Wall Street Journal reports that the social media giant is paying around $2bn — the valuation Manus was said to be targeting for its next funding round.
For Zuckerberg, who has firmly positioned AI at the centre of Meta’s long-term strategy, Manus offers something increasingly rare: an AI business that is already profitable. This is particularly significant as investors grow more cautious about Meta’s $60bn infrastructure spending push, alongside the wider tech sector’s debt-fuelled investment in data centre expansion.
Meta has said Manus will continue to operate independently, while its AI agents will be integrated across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — platforms where Meta AI is already live for users.
