Meta Platforms, led by Mark Zuckerberg, has announced the acquisition of Manus, a Singapore-based AI startup that has rapidly gained prominence in Silicon Valley. Manus first attracted significant attention with a viral demo video showcasing an AI agent capable of diverse tasks such as screening job candidates, planning vacations, and analyzing stock portfolios. At the time of its emergence, Manus boasted superior performance compared to OpenAI’s Deep Research.

Just weeks after its launch, in April, the early-stage firm secured a substantial $75 million funding round led by Benchmark, which valued Manus at $500 million. Chetan Puttagunta, a general partner at Benchmark, subsequently joined the company's board. Earlier, Manus had already raised $10 million from prominent backers including Tencent, ZhenFund, and HSG (formerly Sequoia China), as reported by Chinese media outlets.

Despite some initial skepticism from Bloomberg regarding its pricing model – charging $39 or $199 a month for access to its AI models, which the outlet deemed