Manus Nears $500M Funding Round, Doubling Valuation to $4B

Manus, an AI agent startup, is close to completing a $500 million funding round that would double its valuation to $4 billion, according to Bloomberg. This marks the company's first external fundraising since its split from Meta, and would make it the highest-valued AI agent startup in China.

People familiar with the matter said negotiations are still ongoing and terms could change. The identity of new investors has not been disclosed. Existing backers include Tencent Holdings, HSG and ZhenFund. In July 2026, the founding team and existing investors reportedly bought back all shares from Meta at a $2 billion valuation, with Tencent acquiring Benchmark's stake to become the largest external institutional investor.

Manus resumed independent operations in early September 2026, with the founding team continuing to lead the company in developing generative AI agent products for global users. The funding round signals that investors remain willing to bet on the AI agent sector despite rapid iteration of foundation models and intensifying price competition.

If the deal closes, Manus will further solidify its position as China's most valuable AI agent developer. However, it faces competitive pressure from general-purpose foundation models such as Moonshot's Kimi and Anthropic's Claude, as Manus does not train its own foundation models from scratch.