❯ Manus parent Butterfly Effect announces a funding round of more than $500 million led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital

The first money since going independentButterfly Effect, the parent of Manus, announced on October 8 that it has completed a new round of more than $500 million, led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, with existing shareholders Tencent, HongShan (Sequoia China) and ZhenFund participating again. According to SiliconStar, it is the largest single round to date in China’s AI application sector and the first Manus has announced since saying on September 1 that it had resumed independent operations.

An agent that does the workManus launched in March 2025 and went viral on a demo of its AI agent. As TechCrunch describes it, the company offers a chatbot and tools for building apps and websites in natural language, and can also produce designs, presentations and video. When Meta announced its acquisition in December 2025, Manus was reportedly bringing in more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

No valuation disclosedMeta’s purchase price was about $2 billion; the deal was not completed, and the founding team and existing shareholders bought the shares back from Meta. Butterfly Effect did not disclose a valuation this time; SiliconStar cites a September 17 Bloomberg report putting the round at about $4 billion, twice the level of the buyback.

Hiring and a China product under wayThe company did not say specifically how the money will be used. SiliconStar notes that Manus released Manus 2.0 and a personal agent app called Cue on September 28, is developing a product for the Chinese market in cooperation with domestic model makers, and has opened 17 positions, including product designer, agent product manager and harness engineer. TechCrunch earlier reported that the company is also considering a restructuring to prepare for a Hong Kong IPO.

▮ SIGNALAn application company raising $500 million without a large model of its own shows investors are betting that the agent layer itself can hold users and revenue, not the model underneath.