The Meta logo is seen at the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups held at the Porte de Versailles Exhibition Center in Paris, France on June 11, 2025.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
Meta Platforms announced on Tuesday that it has acquired Manus, a Singapore-based developer of general-purpose AI agents, as the tech giant continues its major investments in artificial intelligence.
Manus was founded in China and later moved to Singapore, but earlier this year it launched its first general-purpose AI agent that can perform complex tasks such as market research, coding, and data analysis.
The company claimed average annual revenue of more than $100 million and a revenue run rate of more than $125 million just eight months after launch.
Meta said in a statement that the purpose of the acquisition is to accelerate AI innovation for enterprises and integrate advanced automation into consumer and enterprise products, including Meta AI Assistant.
“Manas already serves the daily needs of millions of users and businesses around the world… We plan to expand this service to even more businesses,” Mehta said.
According to the companies, Manas will continue to operate its subscription service without interruption. Further terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Manus started as a product of Chinese startup Butterfly Effect, also known as Monica.Im, and has since grown into a separate entity.
The company emerged as an AI player to watch earlier this year, claiming that its chatbot offers better performance than OpenAI’s DeepResearch.
The company raised $75 million in a Series B funding round led by U.S. venture firm Benchmark in April, with backing from Tencent and private equity firm Hongshan Capital Group (HSG), formerly known as Sequoia, according to data from market research firm Tracxn.
The startup reportedly laid off most of its employees in Beijing in July, then moved its headquarters to Singapore in June with an eye on global expansion.
“By joining Meta, we can build a stronger and more sustainable foundation without changing the way Manas works or makes decisions,” Manas CEO Xiao Hong said in a company release.
The company also announced a strategic partnership with Alibaba’s Qwen AI team in March, highlighting its existing relationship with the Chinese tech company.
Aggressive expansion of AI
Meta’s acquisition of Manus fits into the company’s broader AI strategy of finding specialized AI startups to fast-track its broader AI business, including the development of the open source Llama large-scale language model.
For example, in June, Meta invested $14.3 billion in AI startup Scale AI and signed a deal to bring its founder and CEO, Alexandr Wang, to Meta’s AI leadership team.
Meanwhile, Meta acquired AI wearable startup Limitless earlier this month as it looks to grow its AI devices business.
In Manas’ case, his company’s AI agent tools have attracted interest from major technology companies. In October, microsoft started testing Manus on Windows 11 PCs, allowing users to create websites from local files.
To date, Manas claims to have processed more than 147 trillion text and data “tokens” and supported more than 80 million virtual computers. It offers both free and paid subscription tiers.
Mehta said the company is working with startups, OpenAI, google.
