Chinese AI Startup Manus Raises $75 Million in Funding

According to reports, Butterfly Effect, a Beijing-based startup known for developing the Manus artificial intelligence service, has successfully raised $75 million in funding.

Bloomberg reported today, citing sources, that Benchmark led this investment round. Butterfly Effect is now valued at approximately $500 million, five times its previous valuation when it secured about $10 million from Tencent Holdings Ltd. and HSG.

Reportedly, Butterfly Effect's fundraising occurred less than two months after opening access to Manus. At that time, the company shared videos showcasing AI services performing complex tasks such as website development and real estate research. According to Butterfly Effect, Manus can also handle user requests requiring interaction with multiple third-party applications.

Just days after the service launched, users began providing feedback indicating that it underperformed on certain tasks. In one test, Manus crashed while attempting to place a restaurant order. In other instances, the service only partially met user requests and skipped critical steps.

Manus is reportedly powered by several AI agents, large language models optimized to execute tasks with minimal human input. When a user sends a request to the service, an orchestration engine breaks down the request into sub-steps, then assigns each step to the most suitable AI agent.

Recent reports indicate that Manus is supported by one of two LLMs from Anthropic PBC: Claude 3.5 Sonnet or Claude 3.7 Sonnet. The former was hailed as the industry’s most powerful coding model upon its debut last year. Claude 3.7 Sonnet is the improved version released in February this year.

Both LLMs support a feature called computer usage, allowing them to complete multi-step tasks using external applications. To activate this feature, customers must provide the models with access to a Linux-based computer or virtual machine equipped with a browser.

When Manus debuted last month, it was offered for free through an invitation-only early access program. Butterfly Effect's latest funding round reflects investors' optimism about its ability to monetize the service.

At the end of March, the company introduced two paid tiers of Manus priced at $39 and $199 per month. The more expensive plan allows users to execute up to five tasks simultaneously. There are also higher limits on the number of requests Manus can process using computing infrastructure.

Manus competes with Operator, a similar AI automation service launched by OpenAI at the end of January. Operator can perform tasks such as filling out forms and placing e-commerce orders. According to OpenAI, Operator is powered by a model called a computer usage agent, which is partly based on GPT-4o.