Early backers of Manus are preparing to buy the artificial intelligence agent developer back from Meta for the $2 billion the social media company originally paid for it, people familiar with the matter said, after Chinese authorities ordered the acquisition unwound in April.
The group involved in the proposed repurchase includes several of Manus's most prominent supporters from its earliest funding rounds. HSG, ZhenFund and Tencent are among the investors taking part, with HSG and ZhenFund weighing the use of fresh capital to fund their portion of the transaction, according to people who asked not to be identified discussing private arrangements.
Benchmark, another early backer of the startup, is reportedly not participating in the buyback. The absence of one of the company's best-known venture investors raises questions about how the returning shareholders would divide control of a business that is now worth considerably more than the price they intend to pay.
Undoing a December Deal
Meta's acquisition of Manus closed in December and was framed at the time as a landmark transaction — a rare case of a large American platform paying a multi-billion-dollar price for a Chinese-founded artificial intelligence company that had relocated its headquarters to Singapore. Within months, Beijing ordered the deal unwound, a step Chinese regulators have used sparingly and one that signals how sensitive cross-border ownership of advanced AI technology has become.
The order arrived amid a broader hardening of the technological rivalry between Washington and Beijing. The United States has steadily restricted the flow of capital, chips and expertise into Chinese AI development, while Chinese officials have grown more assertive about keeping talent, models and intellectual property within their regulatory reach. A completed takeover of a Chinese-origin AI company by a US platform sat uncomfortably in the middle of that contest, and the demand to reverse it effectively turned a signed contract into a regulatory problem with geopolitical dimensions.
The original transaction valued Manus at $2 billion. That figure now looks modest. Investors who sold into the deal — and those who stayed on the cap table — are effectively being handed the opportunity to reacquire the asset at a price struck before the company's most dramatic period of commercial growth. Buying back at the original valuation lets the returning backers capture the upside of a business that has expanded several times over in the space of a few months.
Structuring the repurchase is not straightforward. Fund managers who committed capital to a company that was then absorbed by a listed US parent must now reassemble an ownership register, agree on governance and settle a valuation that all parties can defend. Using fresh capital rather than existing fund reserves, as at least two of the investors are considering, suggests that the buyback is being treated as a new investment rather than a reversal of an old one.
Revenue Has Climbed Sharply
Manus has expanded rapidly since the takeover was agreed. Its annualised revenue run rate stood at roughly $100 million at the time of the acquisition and has since climbed to between $400 million and $500 million, according to people familiar with the numbers. That four- to fivefold increase reflects both a surge in paying customers and a widening of the company's product surface, as general-purpose agents move from technology demonstrations into everyday enterprise workflows.
The growth trajectory explains why the original investors are willing to move quickly. A business generating revenue at that pace, with a name that became widely recognised following its 2025 launch as a general AI agent capable of executing multi-step tasks autonomously, would almost certainly command a valuation well above $2 billion in a fresh private round. Reacquiring it at the December price therefore amounts to a substantial discount to what the market might now be willing to pay.
It also explains Meta's initial willingness to spend. Agentic AI — software that can plan, browse, code and complete tasks with limited human supervision — has become the most contested frontier in the industry, and the largest platforms have been racing to acquire capability rather than build it from scratch.
Operational Separation Is Complete
Meta has already completed operational separation from Manus and has halted data sharing with the startup, according to reports this week. The separation involved disentangling shared infrastructure, product roadmaps and personnel, a process that is typically lengthy and expensive when a target has been folded into a buyer's engineering organisation.
Halting data flows was the most delicate part of the unwinding. Any transfer of user data, model weights or training material between the two companies would have raised compliance concerns under both Chinese rules and the data protection regimes that apply to Meta's global businesses. The completion of the separation clears one of the practical obstacles that stood between the parties and a signed buyback agreement, and it removes a source of regulatory risk that could otherwise have complicated the return of the asset to private ownership.
A Restructuring and a Hong Kong Listing
Manus is considering changing its corporate structure to become a joint venture incorporated in China, a move that could pave the way for a listing in Hong Kong, according to people familiar with the discussions. The idea reflects the reality that the company's engineering talent, user base and regulatory obligations are increasingly anchored in the Chinese market, even as its commercial ambitions remain global.
Incorporating in China as a joint venture would give domestic investors a clearer route to holding equity and would align the company's ownership with the rules that govern foreign participation in sensitive technology sectors. It would also, in principle, make a Hong Kong initial public offering more straightforward, because the exchange has become the preferred venue for Chinese technology companies seeking international capital without listing in New York.
Hong Kong's Growing Appetite for AI
Chinese artificial intelligence companies Zhipu and MiniMax have both found success with Hong Kong listings in recent months, a trend that has encouraged other founders to view the city as a viable home for public equity. For a company like Manus, a listing would provide currency for acquisitions, a public benchmark for employee equity and a mechanism for early investors to realise returns without a trade sale.
The path is not without complications. A joint venture structure in China can restrict the free transfer of shares, complicate the use of offshore holding companies and introduce licensing conditions that affect how technology can be exported. Any listing would also be subject to review by Chinese regulators, who have demonstrated in this very case that they are willing to intervene decisively when they believe strategic assets are moving in the wrong direction.
Meta's Internal AI Ambitions
Meta had reportedly been planning to use Manus-like technology in an internal initiative aimed at deploying AI agents to replace human workers, part of a broader industry push to automate routine knowledge work. The ambition illustrates why the acquisition mattered to the buyer in the first place: the capability at stake was not a consumer product but a system that could be pointed inward at the company's own operating costs.
Emily Dalton Smith, a key executive involved in applying the Manus-like technology to Meta's internal AI agents, told staff in an internal memo earlier this week that she planned to leave the company. Her departure removes one of the figures most closely associated with the internal agent programme, and it leaves the future of that initiative uncertain as the underlying technology returns to its original owners.
Source:Silicon UK News