Manus Raises $500M at a $4B Valuation, Five Months After Beijing Killed the Meta Deal
Manus is closing a $500 million round at a $4 billion valuation, roughly double the $2 billion mark set when early investors helped the company buy its shares back from Meta. Reported by TechCrunch and Bloomberg on September 18. Existing backers Tencent, HSG and ZhenFund are in, with IDG Capital, Boyu Capital and battery maker CATL named as potential new investors. Tencent is in talks to become the largest shareholder. The round is in discussions, not signed, and the valuation is a target rather than a closed number, which matters when the reporting is this fresh.
The backstory is the whole story. Meta announced a $2 billion acquisition in December 2025. China blocked it in April 2026 citing export control and foreign investment violations. In August Manus made users export their data and then deleted it to comply with regulators, which at the time read like a company being dismantled. Separation completed this month and the company resumed independent operations. Going from forced divestiture to doubling your valuation in five months is not a normal recovery curve.
At $4 billion Manus becomes the most valuable company in China's AI agent sector, ahead of Evoken, which builds the design agent Lovart and is reportedly raising at around $3 billion. Manus had over $100 million in ARR when the Meta deal was announced, and that number is the one to watch, because a $4 billion price on $100 million of agent revenue is a 40x multiple that only works if the ARR has moved a lot since December.
The part nobody is emphasizing enough is the Hong Kong IPO. Manus is reportedly restructuring to prepare for one. An AI agent company listing publicly means quarterly disclosure of retention, gross margin on inference, and how much of that ARR is seat-based versus consumption-based. Right now the entire category argues about unit economics with zero audited numbers on the table. The first agent company to file real ones changes the conversation for everybody, and Manus may get there before any of the American labs do.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/18/manus-seeks-4b-valuation-in-new-500m-fundraise-as-it-resumes-independent-ops/
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The backstory is the whole story. Meta announced a $2 billion acquisition in December 2025. China blocked it in April 2026 citing export control and foreign investment violations. In August Manus made users export their data and then deleted it to comply with regulators, which at the time read like a company being dismantled. Separation completed this month and the company resumed independent operations. Going from forced divestiture to doubling your valuation in five months is not a normal recovery curve.
At $4 billion Manus becomes the most valuable company in China's AI agent sector, ahead of Evoken, which builds the design agent Lovart and is reportedly raising at around $3 billion. Manus had over $100 million in ARR when the Meta deal was announced, and that number is the one to watch, because a $4 billion price on $100 million of agent revenue is a 40x multiple that only works if the ARR has moved a lot since December.
The part nobody is emphasizing enough is the Hong Kong IPO. Manus is reportedly restructuring to prepare for one. An AI agent company listing publicly means quarterly disclosure of retention, gross margin on inference, and how much of that ARR is seat-based versus consumption-based. Right now the entire category argues about unit economics with zero audited numbers on the table. The first agent company to file real ones changes the conversation for everybody, and Manus may get there before any of the American labs do.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/18/manus-seeks-4b-valuation-in-new-500m-fundraise-as-it-resumes-independent-ops/
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