Manus seeks $4B valuation in $500M raise as it charts Hong Kong IPO path

The Chinese AI agent startup is in talks with potential investors including IDG Capital, Boyu Capital and CATL, per a Wall Street Journal report citing anonymous sources.

Manus, the Chinese AI agent startup that spent much of this year unwinding a blocked acquisition by Meta, is in discussions to raise $500 million at a $4 billion valuation, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing anonymous sources.

The reported figure would value Manus at roughly double the price at which its early investors and backers helped the company buy back its own shares — about $2 billion — as it separated from the American social media giant. No lead investor has emerged, and Manus did not immediately return a request for comment.

Potential participants in the round include IDG Capital, Boyu Capital and battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology, as well as existing backers Tencent, HSG and ZhenFund, the Journal reported. Manus is also said to be considering a restructuring exercise to prepare for an IPO in Hong Kong.

Manus makes AI products and agents that overlap substantially with what OpenAI, Lovable and Replit offer. It sells a chatbot and vibe-coding tools that let users build apps and websites, create designs and presentations, and generate video.

The company went viral after a demo of its AI agent last year, then relocated its staff to Singapore in mid-2025 before announcing a $2 billion acquisition deal with Meta that December. At the time, it was said to be pulling in annual recurring revenue of over $100 million.

That deal never closed. Intensifying worries in China about losing AI talent and researchers to the West culminated in Beijing blocking the transaction, citing potential violations of export controls and foreign investment rules.

Since then, Manus has been untangling itself from Meta. As part of the separation, the company told users in August that they would have to export and back up their own data, because it had to delete data generated following Meta's acquisition to "comply with regulatory requirements in specific jurisdictions." This month, it said it has resumed independent operations and that its founding team will continue to lead it.

The talks arrive with Manus back on its own footing in a crowded agent market, weighing a Hong Kong listing while assembling a syndicate that mixes new institutional money with the backers who financed its exit from Meta.