Meta's acquisition of Manus AI may reach a total price of 2.5 billion dollars

Meta's acquisition of AI application Manus AI is overall valued at approximately $2.5 billion, which includes retention incentives for core employees.

Reports indicate that Manus AI completed a $75 million Series B funding round led by Benchmark in May of this year, with the company's valuation at that time being around $500 million. This acquisition is seen as another case of the rapid re-evaluation of exit values in the AI industry, driven primarily by the rapid revenue growth achieved by related products in the short term. Public information shows that Manus AI focuses on a general-purpose AI Agent capable of performing various real-world tasks such as market research, code writing, data analysis, and resume screening, positioning itself beyond traditional chatbots or workflow tools. The company offers services to enterprise clients on a subscription basis and claims to have achieved over $100 million in annual recurring revenue within months of launching its product.

This transaction has also sparked some controversy. The early team of Manus AI has ties to China, but the company is headquartered in Singapore, and about a hundred Chinese employees have since completed their relocation. Axios points out that this will mark Meta's first significant move into the enterprise-level AI Agent space, which may help it narrow the gap in competition with Salesforce, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI. However, the market is also concerned about the controversies Meta has faced in the past regarding data compliance and privacy, and whether enterprise clients are willing to consider it as a core AI service provider remains to be seen.