June 18 (Reuters) - The early Chinese backers of AI startup Manus are planning to buy the company back from Meta at the $2 billion price that the Facebook parent paid, The Information reported on Thursday, citing two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The reported move comes months after China ordered Meta to unwind its acquisition of Manus, amid Beijing's tightening scrutiny of U.S. investment in Chinese startups developing advanced AI technologies.
Early investors in Manus, including HSG,
ZhenFund and Tencent are participating in the buyback, The Information said, adding that HSG and ZhenFund are considering using fresh capital to acquire Meta's position in the startup.
Reuters could not independently verify the report. Meta, Manus and the investment firms did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The move to reverse the deal comes as Manus has grown significantly after the Meta deal, the report said. The firm's annualized revenue run rate has surged to between $400 million and $500 million as of recent weeks, up from $100 million when Meta acquired it, the report added.
Meta in December bought Singapore-based Manus, which develops AI agents that can autonomously carry out tasks with minimal human input, in a bid to bolster its own work on agentic AI. China soon launched a review into whether the deal violated investment rules.
Since Beijing's order in April, Meta has executed an operational split from Manus internally and stopped data sharing between the firms, Bloomberg reported last week.
Manus is considering overhauling its business structure to become a joint venture incorporated in China, paving the way for a Hong Kong stock market listing, The Information reported on Thursday.
The report said early investor Benchmark will not participate in the Manus' buyback process.
(Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)
