Manus seeks $4B valuation in new $500M fundraise as it resumes independent ops
Manus seeks $4B valuation in new $500M fundraise as it resumes independent ops. 25% off tickets now Back by popular demand: Save up to $300 on Disrupt Close Image Credits:SOPA Images / Contributor / Getty Images AI Manus seeks $4B valuation in new $500M fundraise as it resumes independent ops Ram Iyer 9:35 AM PDT · September 18, 2026 Chinese AI startup Manus, which earlier this year had to break off a merger with Meta, is in discussions to raise $500 million at a $4 billion valuation now that it has resumed operations as an independent company, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous sources.
What happened
Manus, which earlier this year had to break off a merger with Meta, is in discussions to raise $500M at a $4B valuation. Manus has since been untangling itself from the American social media giant, and its early investors and backers have reportedly helped the company buy back its shares at a valuation of about $2 billion. To be credible, embedded third-party evaluations must have scientific objectivity, transparency, independence, and robust protections against interference from the evaluated companies, including at least: Frontier AI companies should rely on evaluators that are meaningfully independent, that maintain full editorial control, and that disclose and mitigate potential conflicts of interest.
Embedded evaluations cannot address all oversight needs and should be treated as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, broader efforts by frontier AI companies to expand external oversight, including greater public transparency and additional, broader forms of access for independent researchers. Manus is also said to be considering a restructuring exercise to prepare for an IPO in Hong Kong. Manus, which went viral following a demo of its AI agent last year, relocated its staff to Singapore in mid-2025 before announcing a $2 billion acquisition deal with Meta that December.
As part of its separation from Meta, the company told its users this August that they would have to export and back up their own data because it had to delete data generated following Meta’s acquisition to “comply with regulatory requirements in specific jurisdictions. ” The company this month said it has resumed independent operations, and that its founding team will continue to lead it.
The wider picture
Manus makes AI products and agents that are pretty similar to what companies like OpenAI, Lovable, and Replit offer. Manus did not immediately return a request for comment. Topics AI, China, Fundraising, manus, Meta, Startups When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. "We're just trying to really demonstrate a shared common ground on basic principles and ensure that independent oversight can be a meaningful tool for managing AI risk broadly," said Conrad Stosz, chair of the AI Evaluator Forum consortium that organized the letter, in an interview.
Stosz said that the coalition doesn't "advocate for one particular way" to ensure that AI models are developed safely, but wants to ensure that "basic principles" and "greater standardization" are at least established for evaluators and others who work independently of the major labs. The signatories want the work of evaluators to be conducted independent from the businesses, with more transparency about the technologies, and "to be shielded from retaliation from the companies they embed with," the letter said.
Consolidated powerVinh Nguyen, a Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow for AI and former chief AI officer of the National Security Agency, said independent evaluators are needed to help unearth crucial information that could help mitigate potential security failures and economic calamities. We believe that all frontier AI companies should embed evaluators to independently assess AI risks, including evaluating the systems themselves and any significant incidents of real-world harm, as well as the companies' training, deployment, oversight, operational, and safeguard practices.
What has been reported
This includes at a minimum that embedded evaluation organizations should not be owned or governed by frontier AI companies, should not have other significant commercial business with them, and should not accept any form of payment or other reward contingent on the evaluator's findings. Frontier AI companies should incorporate differing viewpoints and areas of expertise, including by embedding multiple evaluation organizations across a range of priority risk areas, each with deep relevant technical expertise, as well as by allowing and encouraging evaluators to share how conclusions differ among evaluators and between evaluators and company employees.
Embedded evaluators should be transparent, including transparency about their methods and findings, the nature of their access, and the broader terms of the evaluation. Embedded evaluators should be shielded from retaliation from the companies they embed with for choosing reasonable evaluation methods, discovering information, or drawing conclusions that are unflattering to those companies. Frontier AI companies should grant embedded evaluators access equivalent to that of their own highly privileged employees for the purposes of their evaluations, and with exceptions to protect sensitive data belonging to the company's customers and other third parties.
This list is not comprehensive, and conditions like these to ensure credible evaluations should be increasingly standardized, codified, and enforced. Disrupt 2026: OpenAI, Anthropic, Replit, and more take over 6 industry stages. Potential investors in the round include IDG Capital, Boyu Capital, and battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology, as well as existing backers Tencent, HSG, and ZhenFund, the Journal reported.
What happens next
The startup was said to be pulling in annual recurring revenue of over $100 million at the time. However, intensifying worries in China over losing AI talent and researchers to the West culminated in Beijing blocking the deal, citing potential violations of export controls and foreign investment rules. It offers a chatbot and vibe-coding tools to let users build apps and websites, create designs and presentations, generate video, and more. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
Ram Iyer Editor Ram is a financial and tech reporter and editor. He covered North American and European M&A, equity, regulatory news and debt markets at Reuters and Acuris Global, and has also written about travel, tourism, entertainment and books. You can contact or verify outreach from Ram by emailing ram. iyer@techcrunch. com.
The report has been compiled by The Daily Waves using information reported across techcrunch.com, cnbc.com. Details are presented according to the information available at the time of publication and may change as authorities, organisers or other relevant parties provide updates.