Detroit — Meta acquires artificial intelligence startup Manus as the owners of Facebook and Instagram continue their aggressive push to enhance AI offerings across their platforms.
The California tech giant declined to disclose financial details of the acquisition. However, the Wall Street Journal reported that Mehta closed the deal for more than $2 billion.
Manas, a Singapore-based platform with Chinese roots, launched its first “general purpose” AI agent earlier this year. The platform offers paid subscriptions that allow customers to use the technology for research, coding, and other tasks.
“Manas already serves the daily needs of millions of users and businesses around the world,” Meta said in an announcement Monday, adding that Manas plans to expand this service to “provide general-purpose agents for our consumer and business products, including Meta AI.”
Manas CEO Xiao Hong added that joining Meta will allow the platform to “build on a stronger and more sustainable foundation without changing the way Manas works and makes decisions.” Manas confirmed that it will continue to sell and operate subscriptions through its app and website.
The platform has grown rapidly over the past year. Earlier this month, Manas announced that it had surpassed the $100 million mark in annual recurring revenue just eight months after launching.
Manus' initial financial backers reportedly included China's Tencent Holdings, Genfund and HSG. And the company that originally launched the platform, Butterfly Effect, also operates under the name monica.im and was founded in China before moving to Singapore.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday that “there will be no continuing Chinese ownership of Manus AI” after the transaction and that the platform will also cease services and operations in China. Manas reiterated that the company will continue to operate its business in Singapore, where the majority of its employees are based.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pushing for a resurgence of commercial AI efforts as the company faces stiff competition from rivals such as Google and OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT. In June, the company invested $14.3 billion in AI data company Scale and hired CEO Alexandr Wang to lead the tech giant's “superintelligence” development team.
