Hang Ten Systems has raised another $53 million in seed funding. The AI startup was founded by Vishal Sikka, the former CEO of Infosys. This second cheque takes its total funding to $85 million.
The round closed just five weeks after its first seed round. That earlier round was $32 million. Both closed within four months of the company’s launch.
Xora led the new investment. It is the early-stage platform of Singapore’s Temasek. Mayfield, which led the first round, put in more money too.
Other backers joined as well. They include Aramco Ventures, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, and Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra. Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang also invested and sits on the board.
Quick Take
- Hang Ten raised $53 million more, five weeks after a $32 million seed round.
- Total funding is now $85 million. Xora led the new round.
- The startup targets the IT services work that firms like Infosys do.
Hang Ten was founded in May 2026. It is based in Palo Alto. It sells AI advice and software work to very large companies.
Its clients usually earn over $10 billion a year. The startup helps them build and update software using an AI-native model. Sikka says the cost of building code has fallen sharply.
“The build part itself has basically become close to zero marginal cost, close to zero time,” Sikka told TechCrunch. He says the work is shifting from writing code to setting requirements and checking results.
Customers are signing on fast. One signed a multi-million-dollar contract within 25 days of the first meeting. Sikka said he had never seen enterprise deals move that quickly.
The startup now works with 21 major enterprises. Some are existing customers and some are late-stage prospects. Its client list spans the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Named customers include Fresenius Kabi, Saudi Aramco, and Siemens Energy. Hang Ten has won several seven-figure contracts. It is now chasing eight-figure deals.
Those early wins brought Xora to the table. Sikka said Xora approached the startup about investing. The fund also saw a chance to introduce Hang Ten to other Temasek companies.
Sikka did not share a valuation. He did say the second round was priced higher than the first. The fresh money will grow its engineering, consulting, and sales teams.
The company is small for its ambitions. It has about 20 to 25 staff today. They work across the U.S., the Middle East, and Australia, with hiring planned in Europe and India.
Sikka has built enterprise AI before. He co-founded VianAI in 2019, after leaving Infosys in 2017. That startup raised $50 million in seed money, then $140 million in 2021 from SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
He left VianAI in April 2026. Sikka told TechCrunch the company is “going through a transaction”. He did not give more detail.
The market Hang Ten is entering is crowded. Model makers like OpenAI and Anthropic are pushing into enterprise work. Old consulting firms are adding AI to their services too.
Sikka argues buyers still want an independent partner. Many Hang Ten projects are replacing older providers. But more than half of its current chances are new projects that firms had delayed.
The pitch is speed and cost. The startup uses teams of two to four people for jobs that once needed about 30. It promises clients a ten-fold gain in cost, speed, or both.
The name comes from surfing. “Hang ten” is the move where a surfer puts all ten toes over the board’s front edge. Sikka calls AI “probably the biggest wave of our lives”.
StartupFeed Insight
The signal here is not the $53 million. It is the speed. A second seed five weeks after the first, priced higher, means investors are chasing this deal, not the other way round. The real test is delivery. Two dozen people cannot run 21 enterprise programmes at once, which is why the cash is aimed at hiring, including in India. Watch that headcount. If Hang Ten cannot staff fast enough, the demand it is showing off becomes a backlog. Expect a Series A, at a named valuation, before mid-2027 if the hiring holds.
— Avinash Mishra, Business Correspondent
What this means for you: If you sell or buy IT services, watch how fast an AI-native shop can replace a 30-person team with four.
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