Manus Parent Raises Over $500 Million, Rebuilds Beijing Team for China AI Agents

The report said Manus's recruitment website now lists 17 openings, including 16 full-time positions and one internship. That is up from 11 openings before China's National Day holiday, with six roles added during the holiday. The openings include AI Agent product manager, Agent Harness engineer, Agent evaluation engineer, and LLM algorithm engineer. The roles cover product, engineering, business cooperation, and operations. Technical positions also include full-stack engineer, backend engineer, security engineer, virtualization engineer, and DevOps engineer. Product positions include product designer, product marketing manager, and Agent evaluation research intern. Other openings include business analysis, user and product operations, user growth, customer support, and community operations.

Multiple roles directly involve Agent product development, execution frameworks, and evaluation. Agent Harness engineer mainly involves the runtime framework and related infrastructure needed for agents to execute tasks, while Agent evaluation engineer is responsible for measuring the quality and stability of agents completing tasks, according to QbitAI. The report said this is Manus's first public domestic headcount plan since it was bought back by Chinese capital and resumed independent operations. The new team's office location has not been announced. Manus previously had a Beijing office at a shared office space in the epark Haidian Huayuan Road community, with only seven workstations. The company has not disclosed the Beijing team's organizational structure or a launch date for domestic products.

On the night of Sept. 28, Manus said on its new official WeChat account, Butterfly Effect, that it had launched Manus 2.0 for overseas users and Cue, an intelligent assistant for personal life scenarios. It also said it was forming a team to develop products for the domestic market and that cooperation with domestic model makers and ecosystem partners was progressing. The next day, Manus founder Xiao Hong posted on WeChat Moments about Manus 2.0 and Cue, confirmed that a domestic version was being actively prepared, and expressed a willingness to recruit and pursue open cooperation.

The timing follows changes in ownership and the market. In the summer, old shareholders including Tencent, ZhenFund, and HSG bought back Manus for about $2 billion. On Sept. 1, Manus formally resumed independent operations, with the founding team back at the helm. QbitAI reported that changes in equity structure and the operating environment created conditions for Manus to lay out its China business again. It also cited a white paper from an institution affiliated with the China Communications Industry Association predicting that China's enterprise AI agent market will reach 44.9 billion yuan in 2026 and exceed 332 billion yuan in 2029. Beijing has many large model companies, research institutions, and AI engineering talent, the report said.

Manus's return also raises questions from its past. In May last year, the company moved its headquarters to Singapore. In July, it significantly cut its China team and shifted its business focus overseas. The China team had about 120 employees, with more than 40 core technical staff planned to move to Singapore and the rest facing layoffs. Compensation was rumored to include N+3 or 2N. The layoffs came less than half a year after Manus gained wide attention in March 2025 for its general Agent product. Manus said at the time that it was adjusting some business teams based on operating efficiency and would continue to focus on core business. The report said potential candidates may ask how much core research and development the China team will handle, whether the domestic product line is a long-term strategy or a phase, and where the China team would stand if market conditions or company strategy change again. It said Manus may need to show more sincerity to hire and retain core talent. If pay is high enough and the China team has sufficient say in technology and strategy, the hiring push could pressure local AI startups in the talent market.

The competitive landscape has also changed. Xiao Hong said that when Manus was created, OpenAI's Codex and Anthropic's Claude Cowork did not exist. In March 2025, Manus was the only general Agent product that could autonomously break down tasks, call tools, operate webpages, and deliver results, according to the report. Agent products are now a crowded direction for technology giants. Overseas, OpenAI's Codex and Anthropic's Claude Code have strengthened coding and task execution, while Claude Cowork pushes Agent capabilities into knowledge work and daily office scenarios. Both companies have leading model capabilities and large user and developer ecosystems. Meta has also turned around with the personal Agent Muse, the report said. In China, products including WorkBuddy, Qianwen Office, Doubao Work, ZCode, and Kimi Work have taken positions and occupy user mindshare and scenarios. They also have channel and ecosystem advantages that Manus cannot easily copy for now. Domestic model iterations have lowered the model capability threshold for Agent development. Users have seen more Agent products and have higher demands for execution, speed, stability, and price. The report noted that OpenClaw became popular and then cooled, showing how quickly AI trends change. The market is no longer a new frontier where a new concept alone can win; it is a highly competitive red ocean. Manus's latest products try to let Agents take on more persistent tasks and expand collaboration between humans and Agents and among Agents. Whether those capabilities can become products that domestic users will use over the long term still needs to be verified. A year ago, Manus left China when the Agent track was still new. Now it returns with more competitors and a changed industry threshold.

Editor's Summary Manus parent Butterfly Effect has raised more than $500 million and is rebuilding a Beijing hiring plan for China-market AI agent products, according to QbitAI. The move follows a buyback and a return to independent operations after the company cut its China team and moved its headquarters to Singapore last year. It re-enters a much more competitive global and Chinese Agent market, and its ability to attract talent and users remains to be tested.