According to Silicon Republic, Meta has agreed to acquire the Chinese-founded AI startup Manus in a deal valued between $2 and $3 billion. The announcement came on December 29, capping off a massive year of valuation growth for the company. Manus was only valued at $500 million in April after a $75 million funding round led by Benchmark, with other investors like Tencent and HSG. In March, the company previewed its “general AI Agent” for tasks like screening CVs and analyzing stocks, drawing comparisons to OpenAI’s Deep Research. Meta stated it will continue to operate and sell the Manus service while integrating its technology, and Manus’s “exceptional talent” will join Meta’s teams to work on products including Meta AI.
The Billion-Dollar Talent Play
Here’s the thing: this deal is way more about people and potential than it is about a current product. Sure, Manus has a cool demo agent. But Meta is paying a massive premium—something like 4 to 6 times the valuation from just eight months ago. That’s not for revenue; Manus likely has little to none. That’s for the team and the tech moat. Meta is effectively spending $2-3 billion to acquire a concentrated group of AI researchers and engineers who have proven they can build competitive, complex agent systems. In the brutal war for AI talent, this is a tactical nuke. It instantly bolsters Meta’s capabilities in the hot “AI agent” space, where the goal is to have AI that doesn’t just chat but actually does things independently.
The Singapore Shuffle
You can’t ignore the geopolitical angle here. The article makes a point that this is a rare US acquisition of a Chinese-founded company. But look at the crucial detail: Manus is headquartered in Singapore now. That’s not an accident. That shift likely made this acquisition politically and regulatorily possible for Meta. It’s a workaround, but a significant one. It allows Meta to tap into a deep well of AI expertise that has strong roots in China, without navigating the impossible minefield of a direct cross-border deal. So, while commentators fretted about US AI leadership being under attack from Chinese models like DeepSeek, Meta just found a way to bring some of that very capability in-house.
Where Does Manus Fit In?
Meta’s statement says they’ll keep operating Manus as a service and integrate it. I think the “and” is doing some heavy lifting. The standalone service might continue for business clients, but the real prize is integration. Imagine this agent tech plugged into WhatsApp for business customer service, into Facebook for complex marketplace queries, or supercharging the Meta AI assistant we’re already seeing in Ray-Bans and feeds. That’s the scale Meta is talking about—”billions of people.” They’re not buying a startup to keep it as a startup. They’re buying a brain to implant into their existing social and business ecosystem. The race isn’t just about having the best chatbot; it’s about having the most useful AI that can act in the real world. With this buy, Meta just bought a lot of laps.
