Manus raises $500M, returns to Beijing with 17 open roles to rebuild China team
量子位 · wechat · 2026-10-08
Butterfly Effect, parent of Manus, has closed a new funding round of over $500M led by Boyu Capital and IDG, with Tencent, Sequoia China and ZhenFund participating. Manus is rebuilding a team to develop AI Agent products for the Chinese market.
Its careers site now lists 17 openings (16 full-time, 1 internship), up from 11 before the holiday, spanning Agent Harness engineering, agent evaluation, LLM algorithms, product management and go-to-market roles — the first public China hiring push since shareholders bought the company back for roughly $2B and operations went independent in September.
The article recounts the company's turbulent year: the May 2025 Singapore relocation, the July layoffs of its 120-person China team, the halted Meta acquisition, and the buyback. It also warns of hurdles: lingering trust issues from the layoffs, and a far more crowded agent landscape with Codex, Claude Code/Cowork, and domestic rivals like KimiWork and Doubao already entrenched.
Related event: Manus Maker Butterfly Effect Raises Over $500M, Returns to China(3 posts)→
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