Manus AI accelerates the landing of Singapore headquarters, Chinese team lays off dozens of employees
As of press time, Manus AI has not responded to Lianhe Zaobao's request for comment on the news of layoffs in China.
Lianhe Zaobao noticed that in addition to laying down dozens of employees and moving some employees to Singapore, Manus AI's official accounts on Chinese social platforms "Xiaohongshu" and "Weibo" have all been cleared.
Bloomberg quoted anonymous sources as saying that Manus AI has recently laid off dozens of employees in China and moved some of its employees to Singapore. In addition to opening recruitment in Singapore, the company is also recruiting in San Mateo, California, USA and Tokyo, Japan.
Records obtained by Lianhe Zaobao from the Singapore Accounting and Enterprise Control Authority (ACRA) in June this year show that a company called "Butterfly Effect" was registered in Singapore in August 2023. The address is located on Bridge North Road and is wholly owned by the Cayman Islands entity of the same name.
At the "SuperAI" conference held in Singapore on June 18, Manus AI co-founder Zhang Tao revealed in a live speech that the company's headquarters has been established in Singapore, but the new location of the company's headquarters was not announced, and no media interview was accepted on the same day.
According to information on the workplace social platform LinkedIn, the positions currently recruited by Manus AI in Singapore include legal, administrative assistant, human resources and financial managers, in addition to engineers, designers, product managers and data analysts.
The artificial intelligence startup that attracted much attention for the launch of the General AI Agent Manus AI in March this year has recently opened 21 new job recruitment, indicating that it may continue to expand the size of its team in Singapore.
It is reported that US venture capital firm Benchmark is under review by the U.S. Treasury Department for leading the "butterfly effect" round B financing behind Manus AI in April to verify whether it violates regulations that restrict U.S. individuals and companies from investing in advanced Chinese technology.
Some American technology media have also reported that due to the increasing tension in relations between China and the United States, the founders of Manus AI and some investors have discussed the possibility of completely separating Chinese business and international business.
