Manus seeks to raise $1 billion to facilitate its buyout from the acquisition by Meta following a block from China.

      Beijing has instructed the Singapore-based agentic AI startup to reverse Meta's acquisition worth over $2 billion from December. According to Bloomberg's report, Manus plans to raise the capital needed to buy itself back out of the deal. Manus AI, the Singapore-headquartered agentic AI startup at the heart of the Chinese regulatory block on Meta’s December acquisition, is considering a new capital raise of up to $1 billion to finance the reversal of the deal that was finalized five months ago, as reported on Thursday by Bloomberg.

      If successful, this capital raise would value Manus significantly above the $2 billion that Meta invested in December, effectively turning the reversal into a recapitalization. The structure of the deal Manus is attempting to reverse is notable. In late April, China’s National Development and Reform Commission ordered Meta to dismantle the acquisition, citing potential breaches of Chinese investment regulations and concerns regarding the outflow of crucial AI technology.

      Meta has been preparing for the unwinding process with a deadline set by regulators that is measured in weeks rather than months. Manus's corporate history is central to the regulatory context. The startup was established in China and moved its headquarters and core team to Singapore last year following a US-led investment round, resulting in the downsizing of its Chinese workforce and the change of its operating entity to Singapore-based Butterfly Effect.

      At the time of Meta's acquisition in December, Manus was legally registered as a Singaporean entity. However, the NDRC has asserted that the company’s Chinese-origin technology and the team's previous employments in China still bring it under the jurisdiction of Chinese investment review regulations. The anticipated $1 billion fundraising, as described by Bloomberg, would be utilized to reacquire Meta’s shares, finance the data removal and separation necessary for the unwinding, and support the standalone Manus business for the upcoming operating year.

      The company, which reportedly achieved an annual recurring revenue run-rate exceeding $100 million within eight months of launching its first general-purpose AI agent, serves as the operational backbone. Manus’s valuation during the Meta deal implied a nearly fourfold increase over the $500 million value determined during the April 2025 investment round led by Benchmark.

      The broader geopolitical context is crucial to this narrative. The block represents a significant instance of the NDRC's capacity to apply cross-border investment enforcement to Singapore-based firms with Chinese technological roots. O'Melveny’s legal analysis has highlighted this precedent as significant for any US-led AI transaction involving a company with Chinese ties, irrespective of its current incorporation location. This implies that relocating to Singapore does not effectively mitigate Chinese investment review risks.

      For Manus, the upcoming capital raise positions the company to remain competitive in the agentic AI sphere with a robust balance sheet. The Singaporean operational environment is increasingly dynamic: the announcement of OpenAI’s $235 million applied AI lab in Singapore coincided with this development, and the city-state is positioning itself as the preferred AI hub in the Asia-Pacific region for Western-oriented and AI-sovereignty-focused enterprises.

      As per the available reports, Manus has not disclosed the investors it is in talks with for the $1 billion fundraising nor indicated a target completion date for the recapitalization. The news about the potential raise represents the first public indication of how this financial aspect might be addressed. The next visible confirmation will either be a formal funding announcement from Manus or a disclosure from Meta regarding the financial terms of the unwind, whichever occurs first within the NDRC's deadline window.