Originally founded in China, Manus relocated to Singapore and quickly made a name for itself with the launch of its first general AI agent earlier this year. This advanced technology is capable of performing a variety of complex tasks, including market research, coding, and data analysis.

Impressively, Manus reported an annualized average revenue surpassing $100 million just eight months post-launch, with its revenue run rate climbing to over $125 million.

Meta’s statement emphasized that acquiring Manus is a strategic step towards accelerating AI innovation. The company aims to integrate this advanced AI technology into its consumer and business product offerings, enhancing automation capabilities, particularly within its Meta AI assistant.

Meta said in a statement that its acquisition was aimed at accelerating AI innovation for businesses and integrating advanced automation into its consumer and enterprise products, including its Meta AI assistant.

“Manus is already serving the daily needs of millions of users and businesses worldwide … We plan to scale this service to many more businesses,” Meta said.

The company also said it will take steps to wind down Manus AI’s remaining business operations in China and that “there will be no continuing Chinese ownership interests” after the transaction.

According to the firms, Manus will continue operating its subscription service without disruption.

While further terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, the Wall Street Journal reported that the deal closed at an amount over $2 billion, according to sources familiar with the acquisition.

The start-up was seeking a fresh round of fundraising at a $2 billion valuation when it was approached by Meta, the report added.

Manus began as a product of Chinese start-up Butterfly Effect, also known as Monica.Im, before growing into a separate entity.

It emerged as a notable AI player earlier this year after claiming its chatbot offered superior performance to OpenAI’s Deep Research agent.

The company raised $75 million in a Series B funding round led by U.S. venture firm Benchmark in April, and is backed by Tencent and private equity firm HongShan Capital Group (HSG), formerly known as Sequoia, according to data from market research firm Tracxn.

The start-up reportedly laid off most of its staff in Beijing in July before moving its headquarters to Singapore in June as it looked towards global expansion.

“Joining Meta allows us to build on a stronger, more sustainable foundation without changing how Manus works or how decisions are made,” Xiao Hong, CEO of Manus, said in a company release. 

The firm also announced a strategic partnership with Alibaba’s Qwen AI team in March, highlighting its existing ties to Chinese tech companies.

Meta’s acquisition of Manus fits into its broader AI strategy of scooping up specialized AI start-ups to acquire talent and fast-track its broader AI business, including the development of its open-source Llama large language models.

In June, for example, Meta invested $14.3 billion in AI start-up Scale AI, in a deal that brought its founder and CEO, Alexandr Wang, onto Meta’s AI leadership team.

Meanwhile, Meta acquired AI-wearables start-up Limitless earlier this month as the company looks to grow its AI device business.

In the case of Manus, the firm’s AI agent tools have drawn interest from major tech companies. In October, Microsoft began testing Manus in Windows 11 PCs, allowing users to create websites from local files. 

To date, Manus claimed to have processed more than 147 trillion “tokens” of text and data, and supported over 80 million virtual computers. It offers both free and paid subscription tiers.

Meta said Manus employees will join its teams as the company continues to aggressively poach AI talent from start-ups and major rivals, including OpenAI and Google.