Meta Inc. announced Monday that it will acquire Manas, an artificial intelligence startup founded in China, as the tech giant accelerates efforts to integrate advanced AI across its platforms.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but a person with direct knowledge of the matter said the deal would value the Singapore-based company at between $2 billion and $3 billion.
Manas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Manus made headlines at X earlier this year after releasing what it claims is the world's first general-purpose AI agent that can autonomously make decisions and perform tasks with far fewer prompts than AI chatbots like ChatGPT and DeepSeek.
For this reason, commentators have dubbed it China's next deep seek, and Chinese state television has cheered it on. A few months later, the company moved its headquarters from China to Singapore, joining a wave of other Chinese companies that have done so to limit risks from U.S.-China tensions.
Manus' products are not available in China, but the company claims that its AI agent's performance outperforms that of OpenAI's DeepResearch. We also have a strategic partnership with Alibaba to collaborate on AI models.
The company said Meta will operate and sell the Manus service and integrate it into consumer and business products, including Meta AI.
“We think it's a natural fit for Meta's rapidly growing WhatsApp SMB (small and medium-sized business) footprint and can also extend to CEO Mark Zuckerberg's agent-heavy personal AI vision,” said Barton Crockett, an analyst at Rosenblatt Securities.
Tech giants like Meta are ramping up their investments in AI through strategic acquisitions and talent hires as they navigate fierce industry competition.
Earlier this year, Facebook's owner invested in Scale AI, valuing the data labeling startup at $29 billion and bringing in 28-year-old CEO Alexandr Wang.
Manas, backed by parent company Beijing Butterfly Effect Technology, raised $75 million this year at a valuation of about $500 million, sources said, corroborating previous media reports. US venture firm Benchmark led the funding round.
The company's investors also include HSG, formerly known as Sequoia Capital China, ZhenFund and internet giant Tencent Holdings, according to PitchBook data.
