Manus is targeting a $1 billion fundraising effort to facilitate its buyout from the Meta acquisition following a blockage from China.

      Beijing has instructed the Singapore-based agentic AI startup to reverse Meta’s acquisition of over $2 billion from December. In response, Manus is reportedly seeking to raise the funds necessary to buy itself back. According to Bloomberg, Manus AI, the Singapore-headquartered agentic-AI startup at the center of the Chinese regulatory block on Meta’s acquisition, is considering a new capital raise of up to $1 billion to fund the reversal of the deal that was finalized just five months ago.

      If successful, this capital raise would value Manus significantly above the $2 billion that Meta paid in December, essentially turning the reversal into a recapitalization. The acquisition Manus aims to reverse is atypical in its structure. In late April, China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) mandated Meta to reverse the acquisition, citing potential violations of Chinese investment regulations and concerns over the outflow of strategically significant AI technology. Meta has been preparing for the reversal within a tight timeframe set by regulators.

      The corporate history of Manus complicates the regulatory situation. The company was established in China and moved its headquarters and core team to Singapore last year following a US-led funding round, with the majority of its Chinese workforce let go and the operational entity renamed to Singapore-based Butterfly Effect. By the time Meta acquired Manus in December, the company was legally recognized as a Singapore entity. However, the NDRC maintains that the Chinese origin of the underlying technology and the team’s prior employment in China still subject the company to Chinese investment-review regulations.

      Bloomberg’s report indicates that the new $1 billion raise would be utilized to buy back Meta’s interest, fund necessary data removal and separation for the unwind, and stabilize Manus as a standalone business for the upcoming operational year. Manus reportedly achieved a run rate exceeding $100 million ARR just eight months after launching its first general-purpose AI agent, forming its operational backbone.

      Manus's valuation in the Meta deal suggested a roughly fourfold increase over the $500 million valuation established in the April 2025 round led by Benchmark. The broader geopolitical context ties into this situation; the NDRC’s decision serves as a prominent example of Beijing’s willingness to apply cross-border investment enforcement to Singapore-based companies with Chinese technology origins. Legal analyses by O’Melveny have highlighted this precedent as significant for any US-led AI deals involving target companies with Chinese roots, irrespective of their current incorporation location. This suggests that relocating to Singapore may no longer provide a straightforward solution to mitigate Chinese investment review risks.

      For Manus, the capital raise positions the company to compete robustly within the agentic-AI sector while establishing a sufficiently strong balance sheet. The operational environment in Singapore is also becoming increasingly dynamic; for instance, OpenAI recently announced a $235 million applied AI lab in Singapore, and the city-state is positioning itself as the premier AI hub in the Asia-Pacific for Western-aligned and AI-sovereignty-conscious companies.

      As of now, Manus has not disclosed the investors it is negotiating with for the $1 billion round or indicated a target timeline for the recapitalization. The news regarding the potential Manus raise marks the first public indication of how this financial endeavor might progress. The next critical update will come either through a formal funding announcement from Manus or a disclosure from Meta regarding the economic terms of the unwind, whichever occurs first within the NDRC’s deadline timeframe.