By early September 2026, large technology and enterprise software companies had completed or announced a series of acquisitions of AI startups, while one $2 billion deal was being unwound under Chinese regulatory pressure. The latest reported transaction came on September 9, when Axios learned that Meta had acquired Stockholm-based Stilla.ai to accelerate Meta Business Agent, which facilitates transactions on WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram [6]. Stilla, founded in 2024, raised $5 million in pre-seed funding when it emerged from stealth in January, and its team and technology will join Meta pending the close [6]. Meta has said more than 1 million businesses now use its Business Agent chatbot [6].
How the deals unfolded
The first high-profile move in the current wave came on December 29, 2025, when Meta announced it had acquired Manus, a developer of general-purpose AI agents founded in China in 2022 before relocating to Singapore, for $2 billion [3]. Chinese regulators began investigating whether the deal violated foreign investment rules, and in April 2026 the National Development and Reform Commission instructed the parties to withdraw [3]. On August 11, 2026, Manus said it would "soon resume operating as an independent company," and told users to back up data generated after December 29, 2025 as part of the separation from Meta [3]. Beijing has since tightened tech export controls on cross-border deals [3].
SpaceX and Cursor followed a different path to completion. SpaceX formally announced in June 2026 that it had agreed to acquire Cursor, an AI coding assistant launched in 2023, and the transaction became effective August 14, 2026, according to a regulatory filing [4]. The purchase valued Cursor at $60 billion, making it one of the largest tech acquisitions ever [4]. After the closing, Cursor's team said it would have access to "the largest fleet of graphics processing units in the world" [4]. SpaceX and Cursor had already released a joint model, Grok 4.5, in July 2026 [4].
Enterprise software also joined the acquisition wave. On August 5, 2026, Klaviyo announced it would acquire Agency, an AI-powered customer-success startup founded in 2023, for undisclosed terms [2]. Agency founder Elias Torres will become Klaviyo's chief product officer to lead integration of Agency's AI agents, Composer and Customer Agent, into Klaviyo's platform for about 200,000 merchants [2]. Agency had previously raised $32 million from Sequoia, Menlo Ventures and Felicis [2].
In early September, Nvidia made a major commitment to open-source AI tooling. On September 3, 2026, Nvidia said it agreed to acquire Hugging Face, which maintains a large library of open-source datasets and developer tools, for nearly $13 billion [5]. Nvidia committed to maintaining Hugging Face's open standards, and CEO Jensen Huang said, "AI advances faster when people can build together" [5].
By mid-September, the deals were in different stages: SpaceX had closed its Cursor purchase, Meta was separating from Manus while adding Stilla, and Nvidia and Klaviyo had announced acquisitions that had not yet closed [2][3][4][5][6].
Sources
- July 2026 Southeast Tech Funding and Startup News, Hypepotamus
- Klaviyo acquires Elias Torres’ Agency in full-circle reunion for tech founders, SaasRise
- Manus to return as independent company after China forced Meta to unwind $2 billion deal, CNBC
- SpaceX completes US$60 bil acquisition of AI start-up Cursor, Yahoo! Finance Singapore
- Nvidia’s Hugging Face Acquisition Is a $12.9 Billion Bet on Open-Source AI, WIRED
- Scoop: Meta acquires Swedish AI startup Stilla.ai, Yahoo! Finance
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Nina Castell covers startups, funding rounds and acquisitions for Venturist. She writes from company announcements, filings and published reporting.