Abstract:
Just now, Butterfly Effect, the parent company of Manus, announced that it has recently completed a new round of financing of over US$500 million (approximately RMB 3.352 billion). This is the largest financing received by a domestic Agent-original startup. This round of financing was led by Boyu Investments and IDG Capital, with continued support from existing shareholders Tencent, Sequoia China, and Zhen Fund.
In September this year, foreign media Bloomberg reported that Butterfly Effect plans to raise US$500 million (approximately RMB 3.35 billion) at a valuation of US$4 billion (approximately RMB 26.83 billion), which is fully double the previous valuation of US$2 billion. It is expected to make Butterfly Effect, the parent company of Manus, the most valuable AI Agent startup in China.
On September 29, Manus released version 2.0 of Manus and the multi-Agent group chat application Cue. This is the first major version update since it officially resumed independent operations on September 1.
On September 1 this year, Manus announced that it would officially resume independent operations. Manus’ three co-founders, CEO Xiao Hong, chief scientist Ji Yichao, and product partner Zhang Tao, will continue to lead the company, and revealed that innovative results will be released soon.
Manus 2.0 uses the self-developed Agent framework Cascade. Relying on this framework, projects created by users can remain lightweight from the initial stage, and the corresponding professional capabilities are only called upon when the task has actual needs.
In a test configuration, Cascade's token consumption was reduced by 23.2%, task completion time was shortened by 28.2%, and operating costs were reduced by 32% compared to Manus' previous system. This shows that under this architecture, the task completion effect is better and the loss is less.
In the official financing announcement article, Butterfly Effect stated that it is recruiting 17 positions at home and abroad.
Since December 30 last year, Manus has been suspended from being acquired by Meta, and now it has resumed independent operations, with financing and product launches back on track.
Conclusion: Manus wants to face the giants
Double attack with open source projects
The large amount of financing obtained by Butterfly Effect reflects that global capital is shifting its focus on the AI Agent track, and is paying more attention to the entrance of intelligent products that are “executable and implementable”.
It can also be seen from investors in the Butterfly Effect that leading institutions have gathered to raise funds, which also means that start-up companies with global product capabilities and have passed initial commercialization are reaping higher valuation premiums.
Nowadays, competition in the Agent field is becoming increasingly fierce. On one hand, overseas giants such as OpenAI and Anthropic have built Agent capabilities into their main products, squeezing the survival space of start-up companies; on the other hand, open source Agent projects continue to iterate. Now that Manus has received funds, it must not only compete head-on with giants in the global market, but also continue to prove the long-term business value corresponding to high valuations.
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