Intelligence Hub

Meta just bet 2 billion dollars on Manus AI!

Mark Zuckerberg just settled the argument about Meta being stuck in the 'chat lane'. In a massive year-end move, Meta officially acquired Singapore-based Manus AI. It's the muscle Meta was missing: the ability to execute.

Llama talks, Manus does. Manus became a 2025 sensation by delivering a multi-agent system that builds websites and conducts market research autonomously. It hit a $120M ARR in record time.

Emergency Speed. Meta reportedly closed this deal in just 10 days to block Microsoft or Google. With Manus having spun up 80 million virtual computers, the scale is exactly what Meta needs to turn Instagram and WhatsApp into proactive assistants.

Geopolitical Maneuvers. To satisfy DC, Meta is completely severing the startup’s original Chinese ties and moving all operations. It’s a high price, but it clears the path for Meta AI to become a global operating system for tasks.

The power is shifting from models that think to models that act. The era of the General Purpose Agent is officially here.

Bulgaria is about to commit the ultimate act of geopolitical divorce. On January 1, 2026, it officially kills the Lev, a currency that has survived empires, and adopts the Euro.

For decades, Bulgaria was the EU’s quiet basement, the place you went for cheap labor and ignored during big decisions. No more. By joining the Euro, Bulgaria is moving from the kids' table to the boardroom.

1. The Death of the Discount. If you’ve been treating Bulgaria like a bargain bin for talent, your honeymoon is over. The Euro is a psychological mirror. When a Bulgarian dev sees their paycheck in the same currency as a Parisian or a Berliner, the Eastern European discount dies instantly. Salaries are already climbing, and the Euro will act as an accelerant.

2. NATO’s Financial Iron Dome. This is the part nobody says out loud: The Euro is a weapon. For years, the Kremlin used the shadows of the Bulgarian financial system to move money and influence. The Euro shines a floodlight on every corner. By handing the keys to Frankfurt (the ECB), Bulgaria is installing a financial firewall that even the best Russian hackers can't bypass.

3. The Coffee Test vs. The Big Math. The elites in Brussels talk about macro-stability and debt-to-GDP. The guy in a Sofia cafe talks about the price of a macchiato. The Math: Bulgaria is fiscally healthier than France or Italy. The Reality: Half the country is terrified they’ll wake up on January 2nd and find their savings buy half as much.

4. The Verdict. Is it good? For the Euro: Yes. They’re getting a member with almost zero debt. For Business: Yes. The Balkan Risk is gone. It’s now just Europe. For OutSourcing: Only if they stop looking for the cheapest option and start looking for the most stable one.

2025 will be remembered as the moment the AI power balance shifted. While NVIDIA dominated the initial gold rush, a fresh Nasdaq report reveals that Alphabet (Google) has claimed the throne this year.

With a staggering 65% stock surge, Alphabet has significantly outpaced Nvidia’s 40% gain, signaling a transition from hardware obsession to software and infrastructure dominance.

Alphabet's ascent to a $4 trillion market cap was fueled by three strategic pillars:

• First, the November launch of Gemini 3 silenced critics, outperforming rivals in complex reasoning.
• Second, Google’s self-reliance on its TPU chips has eroded Nvidia’s monopoly, even attracting interest from competitors like Meta.
• Finally, a landmark September antitrust ruling, confirming Google would not be forced to divest Chrome or Android, removed the last major cloud over the stock.

As Nvidia faces investor fatigue and sky-high valuations, Alphabet's Google Cloud has hit record-breaking milestones. In 2025, the market made its choice: integrated AI ecosystems are the new vanguard.

Back in September 2025, Datawizz raised $12.5M led by Human Capital and 91 Ventures. This investment signals a major shift toward synthetic data and smarter AI management.

The Core Value: Founded by Israeli prodigy Iddo Gino, Datawizz creates platforms that optimize SLMs. The results are breathtaking: 10x cheaper, 2x more accurate, and 15x faster AI processes.

The GTM Strategy: 91 Ventures is betting big on "Israeli outliers." Datawizz joins a portfolio of category-defining software like Hoopr and Crib App.

NVIDIA has secured a non-exclusive license for Groq's inference technology. Core talent, including founder Jonathan Ross (TPU inventor), is jumping to NVIDIA to turbocharge their tech stack.

Strategic Genius: While NVIDIA owns training, Groq's LPUs are the kings of inference—running models 10x faster and with much higher efficiency.

The Name Game: The move also highlights the ongoing confusion between "Groq" (chips) and Musk's "Grok" (AI chatbot), a naming battle that remains epic.

India is no longer just a cheap support center; it’s becoming the playground for Agentic AI. With a growth forecast of nearly 7% for 2026, it is leaving China in the dust.

France now hosts 6,000+ SaaS firms. GEO is the next frontier—ensuring brands appear first in ChatGPT/Gemini answers.

2025 marks the transition to Agentic Execution. AI agents handle everything from RWA tokenization to stablecoin settlement layers.

Software demand skyrockets but data center power consumption is a bottleneck. Cyber-resilience is now a primary valuation metric.

Investors move away from hype toward proven unit economics. 2026 will be the year of the AI "P&L".

Lovable proves that coding barriers are vanishing for enterprise solutions.

Empathy nails the B2B-for-Humanity model. Recession-proof category in HR-Tech.

FullEnrich flipped the script. Direct challenge to legacy giants by focusing on workflow speed.

Prosus needs predictive intelligence to see which portfolio companies will be disrupted by autonomous agents.