Singapore: Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta Platforms has acquired general purpose AI agent developer Manus, as part of the company’s plans to aggressively invest into artificial intelligence. The startup, founded in China, is now based in Singapore, becoming one of the hottest startups in the AI realm. In a move that has raised eyebrows, the startup has claimed to scale to more than $100 million in revenue within just eight months, an unprecedented scale-up that has defied expectations.
Mark Zuckerberg has been aggressively scaling up his AI capabilities lately, first acquiring a 49% stake in data labelling startup Scale AI for $14.3 billion in June while poaching employees aggressively from OpenAI and other companies for his Meta Superintelligence Lab.
Though there have been concerns about the company’s Chinese origins and the resultant security concerns, Manus had laid off almost its entire staff in Beijing before setting camp in Singapore. This move has been widely attributed to allay fears of global tech companies.
“We’re excited about what the future holds with Meta and Manus working together and we will continue to iterate the product and serve users that have defined Manus from the beginning.” Xiao Hong, CEO of Manus said in a press release.
“Joining Meta allows us to build on a stronger, more sustainable foundation without changing how Manus works or how decisions are made,” he added.
As a virtual agent, Manus has claimed to have processed almost 147 trillions ‘tokens’ of data, offering free and paid subscriptions for its virtual assistant operations.
“We believe in the potential of autonomous agents, and this development reinforces Manus’s role as an execution layer — turning advanced AI capabilities into scalable, reliable systems that can carry out end-to-end work in real-world settings,” the press release added.
