Former Infosys chief’s AI startup nabs another $53M

Hang Ten Systems has expanded its initial seed round with an additional $53 million, taking total seed funding to $85 million. The follow-on tranche was led by Temasek’s early-stage arm Xora, with participation from earlier lead Mayfield and investors that include Aramco Ventures, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang — who also sits on Hang Ten’s board.

The Palo Alto startup positions itself as a strategic and engineering partner for very large enterprises, typically those with more than $10 billion in annual revenue, helping them define AI strategy and modernize mission-critical software. The company says it has already signed multiple seven-figure contracts, is pursuing eight-figure deals, and is engaging with 21 major enterprises across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Asia; named customers include Fresenius Kabi, Saudi Aramco and Siemens Energy. One early sale moved from first meeting to a multimillion-dollar contract in 25 days, according to the company.

Hang Ten’s product approach emphasizes integrating AI into complex enterprise software workflows rather than developing a new foundational model. Co-founder and chief design officer Sanjay Rajagopalan described an internal framework called Hobie that assembles reusable AI "skills" for regulated and complex projects. The startup says that leveraging these capabilities allows small teams of two to four engineers to deliver work that might have previously required much larger teams, and that it can produce roughly tenfold improvements in cost, speed, or both.

The fresh capital will be used to expand engineering, consulting and sales headcount; the company currently reports about 20 to 25 employees across the United States, the Middle East and Australia and plans hires in Europe and India. Hang Ten faces competition from AI model vendors and traditional systems integrators racing to embed generative AI into enterprise services, but Sikka argues there is demand for independent partners that focus solely on enterprise interests.

Sikka, who previously co-founded enterprise AI startup VianAI after leaving Infosys, said Hang Ten has already received acquisition approaches from unspecified large companies but has turned those down while it grows. The startup’s name references a surfing maneuver and, per Sikka, reflects its aim to help enterprises "ride" the current AI wave.