Author: Wawa, Deep Tide TechFlow
Image source: @accuratetlm13
Today's biggest news in the AI circle: Meta acquires Manus for billions of dollars.
This is Meta's third-largest acquisition in history, second only to WhatsApp and Scale AI, and even more expensive than the acquisition of Instagram back in the day.
Looking at Manus's timeline, the product was only launched in March this year and was acquired in December. From release to sale, it took just 9 months.
Founder Xiao Hong, from Ji'an, Jiangxi, graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology and started his entrepreneurial journey in Wuhan. His first product was the WeChat public account formatting tool Yiban, which was sold. The second product was the enterprise WeChat CRM tool Weiban, which was also sold. The third product was the browser AI plugin Monica, which wasn't sold but was criticized.
Criticized for what? For being a shell.
At that time, the industry consensus was that only companies building large models had a future, and those building applications on top of others' models were just shells with no technical substance.
When Manus first gained popularity in March this year, co-founder Ji Yichao responded to a netizen's question on social media: "We've used Claude and also fine-tuned different versions of Qwen."
That is, they used others' large models and built the application layer themselves.
So what?
Now it's worth billions of dollars.
Last year, ByteDance executives flew to Hong Kong specifically to meet Xiao Hong, offering $30 million to acquire the company. Xiao Hong didn't sell.
Looking back now, the difference between $30 million and billions isn't just a year's time—it's:
A product that was successfully built.
Additionally, we think the most interesting part of this story isn't the ending, but the process.
In July this year, Manus made a decision: to move the company from China to Singapore. Out of a 120-person team, only 40 core technical staff were retained to move together, and the rest were all laid off. The Beijing office was closed, and the Wuhan office was also closed.
At the time, many people criticized them for "running away."
Now, it seems this step was necessary. It's almost impossible for a Chinese company to be acquired by a U.S. tech giant under the current environment and get approval. Changing the registration location removed the obstacle.
The negotiation took only 10 days.
ZhenFund partner Liu Yuan said it was so fast that they initially doubted whether it was a fake offer.
10 days to close a deal worth billions of dollars—how desperate was Meta?
Looking at the background: This year, Meta's capital expenditure on AI exceeded $70 billion, but most of it was spent on infrastructure, with few products ready for use. OpenAI has ChatGPT, Google has Gemini—what does Meta have?
Llama is open-source; anyone can use it. Meta needed a competitive application-layer product, and Manus happened to be ready-made.
Annualized revenue of $125 million, built from zero in 8 months, global users, subscription-based, and proven viable.
This isn't just acquiring a team; it's acquiring a:
Validated business model.
Interestingly, Manus's investor list includes Sequoia China, Tencent, and ZhenFund. When this money was invested, the valuation was tens of millions of dollars. Now, upon exit, the return is dozens of times.
So, you see, Chinese VCs invested in a Chinese company, the company moved to Singapore, was acquired by a U.S. company, and Chinese VCs made money from the U.S. company.
This chain is even more Agent than Manus's product.
After the acquisition, Xiao Hong will serve as Vice President of Meta. An entrepreneur who started in Wuhan with a WeChat public account formatting tool is now going to Silicon Valley to report to Zuckerberg.
ZhenFund's Liu Yuan said: "The era for this generation of young Chinese entrepreneurs has arrived."
This statement might only be half right.
The era has indeed arrived, but the way it arrived was by moving the company away.
