The original Chinese backers of artificial intelligence startup Manus are planning to repurchase the company from Meta at the same $2 billion valuation at which it was acquired, according to a report. The Information, via Reuters, states that this reversal occurs just months after the Chinese government ordered Meta to fully unwind its acquisition of Manus. This directive highlights Beijing's tightening scrutiny and aggressive pushback against US investments in Chinese startups developing advanced AI technologies.
Early Investors of Manus
The planned buyback involves Manus's earliest high-profile investors, including HSG, ZhenFund, and Chinese tech giant Tencent. To fund this move, HSG and ZhenFund are reportedly considering raising fresh capital to fully purchase Meta's equity stake in the startup.
The report adds that the unwind comes at a time when Manus is experiencing financial growth. Since being acquired by Meta, the startup's annualized revenue run rate has surged to between $400 million and $500 million in recent weeks. This marks a significant leap from the $100 million revenue run rate it recorded when Meta initially acquired it.
Why Meta Acquired Manus
Meta originally bought the Singapore-based startup to bolster its internal research into "agentic AI" – a technology where AI undertakes and completes tasks with minimal human intervention. Manus specializes in creating highly advanced AI agents with this capability.
The deal quickly drew the attention of Chinese regulators, who launched an immediate review to determine if Meta's takeover violated regional investment rules. Following Beijing's official unwinding order, Meta has already executed a strict internal operational split from Manus and completely halted all cross-company data sharing.
"Chinese-origin AI now carries a kind of reversibility risk that no clever deal structure can price out," Matthias Hendrichs, a Singapore-based adviser to global AI companies, told Bloomberg when China ordered Meta to unwind the deal. "Once another company's engineers have been inside your stack, you can delete the repository, but you can't make them unsee what they've seen," he added.
