Meta has agreed to acquire Manus, the autonomous AI agent startup that grabbed attention earlier this year when its demo went viral. Financial terms weren't disclosed, though Bloomberg reports Manus had a $125 million annual revenue run rate and was valued at around $500 million after a Benchmark-led funding round in April.
The company, built by Butterfly Effect founder Xiao Hong, will keep running its subscription service from Singapore. Meta plans to fold the technology into its consumer and business products, including Meta AI. "Joining Meta allows us to build on a stronger, more sustainable foundation without changing how Manus works," Xiao said, though that's standard acquisition language. The real test comes when integration begins.
Manus launched in March with bold claims about outperforming OpenAI's Deep Research on the GAIA benchmark, a measure of real-world problem-solving. The company says it has processed over 147 trillion tokens and created more than 80 million virtual computers since then. Those are company-reported figures. Benchmark's investment drew scrutiny from the U.S. Treasury Department over compliance with restrictions on investing in Chinese AI companies, given Butterfly Effect's origins in Beijing before relocating to Singapore. Benchmark's lawyers cleared the deal by arguing Manus doesn't develop its own models, instead building on top of Anthropic's Claude and Alibaba's Qwen.
Meta has been on an AI spending spree. Earlier this year, it took a stake in Scale AI and brought in founder Alexandr Wang to lead Meta Superintelligence Labs. Manus gives Meta an AI agent with actual paying customers, a rarity in the hype-heavy autonomous AI space.
The Bottom Line: Meta gets an AI agent already generating $125 million in annual revenue, according to Bloomberg, plus a team that shipped a product millions of people actually use.
QUICK FACTS
- Revenue run rate: $125 million (company-reported via Bloomberg)
- Last valuation: ~$500 million (April 2025, Benchmark-led round)
- Total funding raised: $85 million across 3 rounds
- Key metric: 147 trillion tokens processed, 80 million virtual computers created (company-reported)
- Headquarters: Singapore (relocated from China)
- CEO: Xiao Hong, who previously founded Nightingale Technology
