Author | Xuushan, Editor | Yifan

How Manus AI Persuaded American Investors

'The world's first universal AI agent,' Manus AI, has secured approximately $100 million in funding in Silicon Valley!

On April 25, Bloomberg reported, citing sources, that Butterfly Effect, the company behind Manus AI, has closed a $75 million (approximately RMB 550 million) funding round led by Benchmark, a US venture capital firm. The round also included participation from Silicon Valley investors and existing supporters of Manus AI. As a result, Manus' valuation has surged approximately fivefold, reaching nearly $500 million.

Through multiple verifications, including those conducted via Tianyancha, we discovered that Beijing Butterfly Effect Technology Co., Ltd. was established in April 2022, with Xiao Hong serving as the legal representative and holding 28.03% of the shares.

Butterfly Effect has developed two primary products: Monica, initially focused on text-to-image model development, and Manus, which began as an AI browser plugin. Later, Manus adopted a division of labor model comprising "planning agent-execution agent-verification agent" to simulate human workflow, support cross-domain task decomposition and execution, and fulfill AI agency tasks.

In July 2022, Butterfly Effect received angel round funding for Manus AI from ZhenFund. In January 2023, it secured Series A funding led by Sequoia China and Tencent, followed by Series B funding led by Tencent in December 2024.

According to The Information, Manus AI intends to use the new round of funding to expand its user base. The company's ability to meet product demand is currently constrained by server capacity and operating costs. It utilizes Anthropic's Claude AI model and other tools, paying Anthropic an average of $2 per task.

Furthermore, Manus AI plans to extend its services to other markets, including the US, Japan, and the Middle East, using the new funding. Rumors suggest that the company may open a new office in Japan to tap into overseas markets. This global expansion strategy could be one of the reasons Manus AI attracted American investment institutions.

In a media interview, Xiao Hong stated, "I believe that today's Chinese entrepreneurs should be more proactive in globalization. If we perceive overseas markets as offering better opportunities, this is not merely a market-driven decision; we should enter the international arena to gain experience. We need to engage in global competition, not just in markets we are familiar with."

According to Tianyancha, Xiao Hong was previously associated with Wuhan Nightingale Technology Co., Ltd., founded in 2015. This company released products such as Weiban Assistant, which primarily analyzed WeChat data and other information on the WeChat public platform. Wuhan Nightingale Technology received Series A funding from ZhenFund in 2017 and strategic investment of hundreds of millions of RMB from Tencent and Minglue Technology in 2021.

Xiao Hong sold Wuhan Nightingale Technology to the unicorn Minglue Technology in 2020, left Minglue Technology in 2022, and officially resigned from Wuhan Nightingale Technology Co., Ltd. in 2024.

Subsequently, Xiao Hong launched Butterfly Effect's new product, Monica.ai, initially designed as a "Google's ChatGPT" browser plugin. Rumors suggest that ByteDance attempted to acquire Monica for $30 million in early 2024, aiming to integrate Monica's team and technology into its Doubao AI ecosystem. However, founder Xiao Hong declined the offer.

In March of this year, DeepSeek stunned the world with its low-compute, high-performance model, reducing model prices by over one-third. Following DeepSeek's success, Manus emerged as another rising star among Chinese AI startups, with a team size of nearly 80 people. Manus' universal AI agent can screen resumes, create travel itineraries, and analyze stocks based on basic instructions. Manus AI officials have stated that over two million people are on Manus' waitlist. Currently, Manus offers a $39 per month subscription and a $199 upgrade service package, similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT Pro pricing.

However, general AI application developers like Manus AI face competition from companies like OpenAI, which possess large general-purpose foundation models. Unless startups have strong technology and resources, OpenAI can easily enter the general AI application field. Nevertheless, Manus' early start has allowed it to accumulate a user base and create a flywheel effect, giving it a competitive edge.

Additionally, we have observed that in recent years, more investment institutions have started focusing on AI startups adopting the 'Chinese team + overseas structure' model. For instance, Benchmark previously led the investment in AI video generation company HeyGen, whose core founding team also originated from the Chinese startup Shiyun Technology.

AI startups with the 'Chinese team + overseas structure' model tend to emphasize the integration of technological globalization with localization capabilities, establishing cross-regional ecosystems to seamlessly integrate into the global market.