China’s Manus raises over $500M in first funding round since split with Meta

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

Boyu Capital and IDG Capital led the round. Existing shareholders Tencent, HSG (formerly known as Sequoia China), ZhenFund and others also participated. Manus said it will continue hiring both at home and abroad, but did not disclose its valuation. Last month it 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 its valuation.

Manus went viral after a demo of its AI agent last year. It relocated its staff to Singapore in mid-2025 before announcing the $2 billion acquisition deal with Meta that December. At the time, the startup was said to be pulling in annual recurring revenue of over $100 million. In April, Chinese authorities ordered the AI startup to unwind the deal amid intensifying worries in China over losing AI talent and researchers to the West.

In August, Manus resumed independent operations following the end of the Meta deal and said it was required to delete some user data as part of the split. The company is also reported to be considering going public in Hong Kong.

Manus makes AI products and agents similar to what companies like Cursor, Lovable and Replit offer. It offers a chatbot and vibe-coding tools that let users build apps and websites, create designs and presentations, and generate video. 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, letting agents communicate, handle tasks across services and make payments within limits set by the user.

Why it matters: The round gives Manus fresh capital and backing from both new and existing investors as it operates independently again and expands hiring in China and abroad. The reported Hong Kong listing consideration and the deletion of some user data tied to the Meta split are developments that affect the company's users and its future access to public markets.