Chinese startup Butterfly Effect, creator of the autonomous AI agent Manus, has secured $75 million in funding led by Silicon Valley's Benchmark. The investment catapults the company's valuation to nearly $500 million—a fivefold increase from its previous round. This round follows the over $10 million the company raised from existing investors, including Tencent Holdings, ZhenFund, and HSG (formerly Sequoia China).

Manus, a so-called "general AI agent," gained significant attention after a video demo of the system's diverse capabilities, from resume screening to trip planning and stock analysis, quickly went viral. The company claimed its service outperformed OpenAI's Deep Research on several metrics, and potential users swarmed to the service in the hopes of getting their hands on one of a limited number of invites.

Anonymous sources tell Bloomberg that Butterfly Effect plans to expand into new markets, including the US, Japan, and the Middle East. The startup recently launched subscription tiers at $39 and $199 per month, pricing comparable to OpenAI's offerings despite being a product still being tested, and that has received very divisive reviews: although some users have called Manus a groundbreaking development, others have stated that the product feels half-finished. Yet others reported the system crashes before being able to complete some tasks.

Still, Manus was promptly compared with DeepSeek as another successful instance of a Chinese company challenging the US dominance in the artificial intelligence domain. More generally, Manus was considered another milestone in China's growing AI capabilities, again demonstrating that the Chinese industry may not be as far behind as the US had taken it to be. And while user reactions to Manus have been mixed, the substantial backing from a top Silicon Valley VC signals serious confidence in the startup's autonomous agent technology.