The round
Butterfly Effect, the parent company of the AI agent startup Manus, said on Thursday 8 October that it had raised more than $500 million, according to an AFP report. Boyu Capital and IDG Capital led the round, with existing investors Tencent, HSG Capital and ZhenFund taking part.
The company did not disclose a valuation. Media reports put it at around $4 billion, roughly double what Meta agreed to pay for the whole company, which is the figure worth holding on to.
How it got here
In December 2025 Manus and Meta announced a $2 billion acquisition, one of Meta’s largest purchases. In January 2026 China said it would probe the deal. In April its economic planning body ruled the deal had to be unwound, a decision analysts read as Beijing wanting more control over homegrown technology companies. Beijing also reportedly restricted overseas travel for two of Manus’s co-founders, though both were later seen at a company product launch in Singapore.
In September the company said it had resumed independent operations, with the founders and investors having bought the firm back from Meta. This is the first round since that separation.
What Manus actually sells
Manus is a Chinese-developed, Singapore-based AI agent tool that carries out real-world tasks on a user’s behalf. Its September update came with a standalone app called Cue, which lets users build personal agents for errands such as booking restaurants and making phone calls — a product AFP compares to Meta’s own personal agent, Muse.
The company has not said what the money is for. What it has said is that it is forming teams to “develop products for the domestic market”.
The thing this is really about
A regulator blocked a sale, the founders bought their company back, and domestic investors refinanced it at roughly twice the blocked price. Read one way, that is a loss for Meta and a win for everyone else. Read another, it is a company that has lost access to an American distribution channel and is now rebuilding for a market it had deliberately structured itself out of by basing in Singapore.
What to watch
Whether the $4bn figure is ever confirmed, and what the domestic products look like. A personal agent that books restaurants and makes phone calls is a different proposition in a market where the super-apps already do both.
