What a twist! 13.5 billion talks to buy back Manus, Tencent takes the lead and joins the game without holding a controlling stake

Kuai Technology News on July 11: Recently, there are reports in the market that Tencent is negotiating to become the largest shareholder of Manus, a general AI agent company. It is understood that a Chinese capital group led by Tencent repurchased all the shares of Manus from Meta at a valuation of approximately US$2 billion (approximately 13.5 billion yuan). According to media reports, people familiar with the matter revealed that after this transaction, Tencent will remain a minority shareholder but will not hold a controlling stake. In fact, as early as June this year, news broke that institutions, including many early investors of Manus, planned to spend US$2 billion (approximately 13.5 billion yuan) to repurchase the equity of Manus from Meta. Well-known domestic institutions such as Tencent, Sequoia China, and Zhen Fund all participated in this plan. Public investment information shows that Tencent, Sequoia China, and Zhen Fund are the core early investors of Manus, and overseas venture capital such as Benchmark also participated in the company's first round of financing. After Meta completed the acquisition of Butterfly Effect, the parent company of Manus, a number of early investors successfully cashed in their investment returns and completed income distribution to their respective LPs. The origin of the entire incident can be traced back to December 30, 2025, when Meta officially announced that it would acquire Butterfly Effect, the parent company of Manus, for a consideration of over US$2 billion. But this cross-border AI acquisition did not land smoothly: On April 28, 2026, the National Development and Reform Commission issued an announcement that the Office of the Foreign Investment Security Review Working Mechanism made an investment prohibition ruling on the foreign investment acquisition project and ordered Meta to cancel the acquisition. Affected by the ban, Meta started to cut off its business with Manus in June this year. Starting from early June 2026, Manus employees have been restricted from accessing Meta's internal data system, and Meta's internal employees are also prohibited from using Manus-related AI tools in work scenarios. The business and data of both parties are completely isolated, which also gave rise to a plan for Chinese capital to form a group to repurchase equity.