Manus was, briefly, one of the most valuable exits in Chinese AI. Meta agreed to buy the agentic AI startup for more than $2bn late last year, then watched Beijing block the deal on national-security grounds. Now the company is being bought back by the people who owned it in the first place, and Tencent looks set to sit at the front of the queue.
Tencent is in talks to become Manus’ largest shareholder, according to the Financial Times, whose report was picked up by Bloomberg and Reuters. The plan would see a consortium of the startup’s earlier investors repurchase it at the same $2bn valuation Meta had agreed to pay, effectively reversing the acquisition.
Tencent is expected to take the biggest slice, but the detail that matters is what it will not be. The company would remain a minority shareholder even as the largest single holder, according to the report, an arrangement that keeps any one investor from controlling a startup whose Chinese roots proved politically delicate.
The consortium is largely a reunion of Manus’ original backers. Alongside Tencent, it is said to include the venture firm ZhenFund and HSG, the investment house formerly known as Sequoia Capital China. New investors could still join the round, according to the report, while some former backers are expected to sit it out.
