Manus, the AI agent startup that went viral in early 2025 for running tasks on its own, is in the middle of a fight over who controls it. Revenue is climbing fast, and now its original investors are trying to reverse a deal tied to Meta, according to The Information. The combination of a hot product and a contested cap table is what makes this one worth watching.
Here’s what’s on the table, based on The Information’s reporting.
What happened
Manus is growing its revenue quickly, the kind of traction that turns a buzzy demo into a real business. At the same time, the company’s early backers are pushing to unwind an arrangement involving Meta. When founding investors move to claw back a deal with one of the biggest names in tech, it usually means they think the company is now worth a lot more than the terms reflect, or that the deal threatens the upside they signed up for.
The Information frames this as a tug-of-war between Manus’s original supporters and the Meta agreement they now want gone.
Why it matters
Manus isn’t just another chatbot wrapper. It pitched itself as a general AI agent that plans and executes multi step tasks with limited hand holding, and that pitch pulled in a wave of attention and waitlist signups last year. Rising revenue says the attention is converting into paying users.
That changes the math for everyone on the cap table. A few points stand out:
- Leverage shifts with growth. A deal that looked fair when Manus was unproven can look like a giveaway once revenue takes off. Early investors protecting their stake is a signal of how valuable they think the company has become.
- Big tech ties cut both ways. A relationship with Meta can bring money, compute, and distribution. It can also box a startup in on ownership, strategy, or future fundraising. Reversing it suggests the founders’ backers want room to run independently.
- Agents are the hot category. Autonomous AI agents are where a lot of 2026 spending and hype is heading. Control of a fast growing agent company is worth fighting over.
The bigger picture
We’ve seen a pattern this past year of large AI labs and platforms pulling talent and equity out of promising startups through acqui hires, licensing deals, and minority stakes. Those structures let a giant get the upside of a startup’s work without a clean acquisition. The pushback at Manus reads like the other side of that trend: founders and early investors deciding they’d rather keep the value in house.
For practitioners and operators, the takeaway is simple. The agent space is moving from “cool demo” to “contested asset.” When investors start fighting to undo deals instead of begging for liquidity, it tells you the underlying product is working.
What to watch next
Keep an eye on whether Manus’s investors actually succeed in reversing the Meta arrangement, what that does to the company’s next funding round, and how Meta responds. The outcome will hint at how much power early backers really have when a startup’s value jumps faster than anyone planned. Full details are in The Information’s report.