Beijing will lift travel ban on AI company founders

Sthe British newspaper Xiao Hong, executive president and co-founder of Manus, recently informed its collaborators that it intends to return soon to Singapore, where the platform is based.

Xiao and other elements of Manus' leadership, including Chief Scientist Ji Yichao, were prevented from leaving China after being summoned to Beijing in March, due to an investigation initiated by Chinese authorities to sell start-up to the American technological giant Meta, with the aim of determining whether investment rules had been violated.

This week, Manus announced that it will soon be operating again as an independent company. “This is part of our process of separation from the Meta; we have to take this step to meet regulatory requirements in certain regions of the world,” explained the company on its portal last Tuesday.

The sale cancellation plan will require the final approval of the regulators led by the National Development and Reform Commission, China's state planning body which in April blocked the purchase by the Meta.

The newspaper reported, citing unidentified sources, that the regulators in Beijing assured Manus that their business operations will not be affected as soon as the cancellation agreement is resolved to meet all requirements.

As part of the annulment agreement, most of Manus’ former investors — including Tencent, ZhenFund and HSG private equity company —, together with the management team, will buy the company back from Meta on the basis of the same valuation of around $2 billion (about €1.84 billion), advanced the Financial Times (FT) last month.

The US venture capital fund Benchmark, as well as some smaller investors, will not participate in the buyback. Its shares will be mainly acquired by Tencent, which will become Manus' largest shareholder.

Nevertheless, Tencent will only have a minority stake and Manus will continue to operate independently from Singapore instead of being integrated into Chinese technology.

Despite being under investigation, Manus continued to actively update its platform and plans to release version 2.0 shortly after the cancellation agreement was concluded, it revealed one of the sources. It is expected that its recurring annual revenue will remain above 300 million dollars (EUR 276 million) after the separation of the Goal.

Meta acquired Manus in December last year, a few months after the company moved its headquarters and its leading engineers from China to Singapore. The American giant quickly integrated Manus into its platform, including its advertising systems.

In April, China ordered Meta to cancel the acquisition, alleging breach of investment rules. Shortly thereafter, Meta started separating operations and interrupted data sharing, as FT reported earlier.

The order to cancel this business serves as a warning to other Chinese technology companies against the use of Singapore as a transition point for possible sales to foreign buyers.

In order to close this legal gap, Beijing is also considering including AI agent technology in its next updated list of export control, FT reported last month.