Chen Tianqiao's MiroMind splits its China business as U.S.-China regulations tighten

In April 2025, Chen Tianqiao founded MiroMind in California, relying on teams in Singapore, Beijing, and Shanghai to develop deep research agents, and its open-source agent achieved leading results on benchmarks such as BrowseComp. After Beijing launched a review in January of this year into Meta's acquisition of Manus, a startup with Chinese roots, MiroMind closed its Beijing and Shanghai operations on January 16, cutting off Chinese researchers from overseas code and data, and subsequently rebuilt its research team in the United States and Singapore. Dai Jifeng, the former head of the China team, stayed in China to start another company, and the two sides had a public dispute over ownership of the technology and personnel. Chen Tianqiao said he had invested about $2 billion of his own funds and was prepared to invest another $2 billion; his focus has shifted to Apodex, a research agent launched in June, with a goal of $1 billion in contract revenue by June next year, break-even by June 2027, and an IPO at the end of that year.