Manus founders seek $1B to buy company back from Meta
Investors said to be in discussions to finance deal with plan for Hong Kong IPO
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It’s been a month since China demanded Meta unwind its $2 billion purchase of Manus. That was unprecedented, but things might get wilder still as the startup’s founders are raising capital to buy their business back with a view to taking it public.
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The Manus saga just took another wild twist
Just when you thought it couldn’t get weirder, the Manus founders are plotting to buy their business back from Meta less than six months after the ill-fated deal was announced.
Bloomberg reports that Xiao Hong, Ji Yichao and Zhang Tao are “in discussions” with external investors to raise around $1 billion to finance the buyback. The trio would make up the remainder of the capital required to complete the deal.
It looks like the financing would come at a valuation of at least $2 billion, roughly what Meta paid for Manus, which would give the investors a very sizable chunk of ownership. Bloomberg reports also that the new entity would be a Chinese joint venture with plans to take it to a Hong Kong IPO, presumably fairly quickly in order to sweeten the deal for investors.
There’s no precedent for the unwinding of Manus-Meta, which readers will know is being forced by China, but this would certainly mark a fairly wild development if what Bloomberg reports comes to pass.
Founders buying back companies that they sold is not uncommon, but typically the timeframe for such deals is years and usually they are given away in a fire sale because things haven’t worked out. Wistful founders take control again because they want to restore their baby to full health.
That’s not exactly the case here. But the alternative to a founder-led buyback is fairly grim, so this appears to be a better option.
A few key points will be critical:
How much IP and talent has Manus surrendered to Meta?
The company was on track to gross $1 billion in annual recurring revenue, but Meta integrated its products into its platform, particularly Facebook ad sales, and key Manus staff began working from Meta’s Singapore office.
What does Manus’ roadmap look like?
The first six months of an acquisition are about assimilation, which was happening as we established, so the firm would need to get back into independent, startup mode to show it can maintain and grow at IPO levels.
What investors will back it?
A quick run to HKEX could sway investors into backing Manus by providing a clear exit strategy, but will that attract value additive backers? Would retail investors embrace a returning prodigal son stock? Again, zero precedent.
But with Zhipu shares up 8X this year and Minimax’s doubling over the same period, a Hong Kong listing looks a lot more appealing than the current limbo.
Amazon assures us it is spending a lot of money on AI in Southeast Asia
OpenAI, Google, Nvidia and others are on board for Singapore’s national AI strategy and robotics programme, but Amazon was a notable name missing from the flurry of partnerships announced earlier this week.
Perhaps conscious of that absence, and the closure of its Singapore operations which came with job losses, Amazon said today that it is on track to spend more than $33 billion on AI infrastructure in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand by 2039.
Amazon’s news announcements are always curious things, and this one is no exception.
When it closed its local Singapore service, Amazon led with a press release titled “Amazon Singapore to expand International Store selection in response to customer demand.” That definitely didn’t tell the story.
Yesterday’s AI announcement had similar characteristics.
Amazon didn’t announce anything but big numbers which are tough to substantiate:
Amazon’s planned investments in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand in cloud and Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure are expected to reach over US$33 billion by 2039, supporting over 56,300 full-time-equivalent jobs annually and add US$64 billion to the four countries’ collective GDP by 2039.
2039 is a long way away, and claiming, let alone forecasting, GDP is highly speculative.
Amazon has trained over 2.7 million individuals across Southeast Asia on cloud skills since 2017.
Ok…
In 2025 alone, Amazon invested more than US$3 billion - including infrastructure and employee compensation - across its various businesses including Stores, Amazon Web Services, Global Selling, Devices, and Entertainment in Southeast Asia.
Breaking out employee compensation is interesting, although that is certainly part of an investment package when developing new infrastructure.
Amazon certainly looked keen to say something about Southeast Asia this week. Here it is.
In other news you won’t want to miss:
Grab is taking majority control of Indonesian digital lender Superbank after taking a stake from former partner Singtel [Business Times]
Samsung Electronics workers won’t go on strike after the company agreed to pay around 40 trillion won ($26.6 billion) in bonuses to semiconductor employees after reaching a last-minute deal [Bloomberg]
Indian credit card startup Scapia raised $63 million in a General Catalyst-led funding round, more than doubling its valuation to over $500 million [TechCrunch]
Malaysia’s communications regulator ordered TikTok to explain its delayed response to offensive and fake content targeting the royal institution [Channel News Asia]
India’s Shastra VC launched a $100 million fund targeting deeptech, defense, AI, and renewable energy startups, investing between $500,000 and $3 million per startup [The Economic Times]
An Indonesian court sentenced the head of Japanese drone developer Terra Drone’s local unit to 16 months in prison for negligent homicide in connection with a fire that killed 22 employees and injured 15 [Nikkei Asia]