Manus Parent Butterfly Effect Raises $500M+ After Meta Exit
TL;DR
- Butterfly Effect, parent of Chinese AI agent Manus, closed a funding round of more than $500 million co-led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital.
- Tencent, HSG, and ZhenFund joined the round; the company disclosed neither the valuation nor the intended use of the capital.
- It is Manus's first raise since Meta's roughly $2 billion acquisition was unwound in April on orders from Beijing.
Butterfly Effect, the parent company of Chinese AI agent Manus, has closed a funding round of more than $500 million, TechNode reported on October 8. Boyu Capital and IDG Capital co-led the round, with Tencent, HSG, and ZhenFund also participating.
"The announcement did not disclose the company's valuation or the intended use of the new funds," TechNode wrote. Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal had previously reported the round was targeting roughly a $4 billion valuation, a figure the company itself has not confirmed.
It is Manus's first raise since Meta's roughly $2 billion acquisition of Butterfly Effect was unwound in April on orders from Beijing, per reporting carried by Asharq Al-Awsat. Chinese regulators have tightened scrutiny of US investment in Chinese startups developing advanced AI technologies. Manus resumed independent operations later in the year.
Against a steady run of China-AI stories on our tracker this quarter, it is one of the loudest single capital events to come out of the country's agent sector.
Originally reported by technode.com
Read the original article →Original headline: Manus Parent Butterfly Effect Raises $500M+ at $4B Valuation, First Round After Meta Buyout Unwinds