On April 28, according to the Wall Street Journal, people familiar with the matter said that after the Office of the Foreign Investment Security Review Mechanism under the China Development and Reform Commission made a decision to ban foreign investment in the Manus project in accordance with the law, Meta was preparing to have to cancel the acquisition.
Caption: Manus
Meta acquired the AI agent company Manus for US$2.5 billion in December last year and quickly integrated the latter's new technology into the system. Undoing the deal would mean splitting the two companies.
According to people familiar with the matter, Manus investors including Benchmark, a well-known US venture capital firm, have received returns on their investments. People familiar with the matter said that if Meta moves forward with the process of canceling the deal, a number of Manus's former Asian investors, including Tencent, Sequoia China and Zhen Fund, have planned to cooperate.
Another person familiar with the matter said Meta admitted that if it wanted to cancel the acquisition, Meta would have to let Manus's founder leave. Previously, after Meta’s acquisition, Manus founder Xiao Hong was appointed as Meta’s vice president.
Currently, Meta generates significant revenue from Chinese advertisers who target consumers outside of China.
As of press time, Benchmark has not commented on this.