Manus, the Chinese AI agent startup that went viral on a single demo, is in discussions to raise $500 million at a $4 billion valuation as an independent company, according to a Wall Street Journal report cited by TechCrunch on Thursday (September 18). The raise follows Beijing’s decision earlier this year to block Meta’s $2 billion acquisition of the company — the deal that was supposed to be its exit.
The Journal, citing anonymous sources, reports that potential investors include IDG Capital, Boyu Capital and battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), alongside returning backers Tencent, HSG and Zhenfund. Manus is also said to be weighing a restructuring to prepare for an IPO in Hong Kong. Manus did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment, and the company’s own notice page currently tells users only that it “will soon resume operating as an independent company.”
The deal Beijing stopped — and why it matters
The backstory is the unusual part. Manus relocated its staff to Singapore in mid-2025 and announced a $2 billion acquisition by Meta that December, with annual recurring revenue reported at over $100 million at the time. Then Chinese authorities blocked the deal, citing potential violations of export controls and foreign investment rules, amid intensifying official concern about AI talent and technology moving westward. We covered the block at the time: China turned Meta’s Manus acquisition into a national-security test case.
Since then Manus has been untangling itself from Meta. Early investors reportedly helped the company buy back shares at a valuation of about $2 billion, and as part of the separation users were told in August to export and back up their own data because data generated under Meta ownership had to be deleted to “comply with regulatory requirements in specific jurisdictions.” The company said this month that it has resumed independent operations under its founding team.
What Manus actually is
Manus sells general-purpose AI agents — a chatbot, browser automation, and vibe-coding tools for building apps, websites, presentations and video — in the same territory as OpenAI, Lovable and Replit. Its March 2025 demo made it the most-discussed agent launch of that cycle, and the product has since added team plans, an API, and a browser operator. The company’s product page now leads with “Less structure, more intelligence” — the positioning of an autonomous-agent platform rather than a wrapper.
The read
A $4 billion valuation would be roughly double the reported buyback price, and doubling down as an independent Chinese-linked AI company is a bet on the agent market staying hot. It also keeps Manus inside China’s orbit rather than Meta’s — which was the entire point of Beijing’s intervention. The company that could have become a Meta subsidiary is instead raising from Chinese state-adjacent capital and eyeing a Hong Kong listing. For anyone tracking how AI companies get pulled into great-power industrial policy, Manus is the cleanest case study going: China has been explicit about wanting its AI firms onshore, and this round shows what that looks like in practice.
