The Palo Alto startup says it has landed multiple seven-figure enterprise contracts within months of launch.
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Hang Ten Systems , an AI startup founded by former Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka just four months ago, has expanded its seed funding by another $53 million. This new investment round was closed just five weeks after the initial $32 million seed round was closed , the company tells TechCrunch.
The fresh investment, led by Temasek's early-stage investment platform Xora, takes Hang Ten's total funding to $85 million. Mayfield, which led the startup's earlier investment, also participated. Other investors include Aramco Ventures, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, who is also on its board.
Founded in May, Hang Ten is betting that AI can fundamentally reshape how large companies build and maintain software. The startup advises companies - typically with over $10 billion in annual revenue - on AI strategy and also helps build and modernize software.
"The build part itself has basically become close to zero marginal cost, close to zero time," Sikka (pictured above) told TechCrunch. He argued that AI is shifting the focus of software development from writing code to defining requirements and validating whether systems perform as intended.
The thesis appears to be resonating with customers. Within 25 days of the first meeting with one customer, Hang Ten signed a multimillion-dollar contract to build a mission-critical software system, Sikka said, adding that he had never seen enterprise deals move that quickly.
Hang Ten is now working with a mix of existing customers and late-stage prospects spanning 21 major enterprises, Sikka said, with some prospects in the proposal or contract-negotiation stage. The startup has secured multiple seven-figure contracts and is pursuing eight-figure deals. Moreover, its customers span the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and include Fresenius Kabi, Saudi Aramco, and Siemens Energy.
The early customer wins prompted Xora to approach Hang Ten about investing, Sikka said, adding that Xora saw an opportunity to introduce the startup to other companies in Temasek's portfolio. Sikka declined to disclose Hang Ten's valuation but said the second round of seed funding was a bump up.
With the fresh capital, Hang Ten plans to expand its engineering, consulting, and sales teams. The Palo Alto-headquartered startup currently has about 20 to 25 employees across the U.S., the Middle East, and Australia, and expects to hire in Europe and India, Sikka said.
Hang Ten enters a crowded market in which AI model developers such as OpenAI and Anthropic are expanding their enterprise offerings, while traditional consulting firms are racing to embed generative AI into their own services.
"Enterprises still need trusted partners who are independent of the underlying platform and who work with and solely in the interest of the enterprise," Sikka said. "There will always be room for companies like us."
Hang Ten says its edge lies not in building another AI model, but in adapting AI to the complex software development processes of large enterprises. CTO Sanjay Rajagopalan told TechCrunch the startup's engineers rely on an in-house framework, Hobie, that packages reusable AI "skills" for regulated industries and complex enterprise software projects.
"We are actually delivering production software," Rajagopalan said. "It's not like we are doing some kind of PoC."
Hang Ten's approach is already putting it in competition with traditional systems integrators. Many of the startup's engagements, Sikka said, are replacing incumbent providers, though more than half of its current opportunities involve new projects that companies had previously put off, rather than work taken from existing vendors.
Rajagopalan noted that Hang Ten can use teams of about two to four people for some projects that might previously have required about 30, although customers or independent third parties still handle final quality checks and certification. The startup promises customers a 10-fold improvement in cost, speed or a combination of the two, he said.
Reporting synthesized and verified under Nexvoro.tech editorial guidelines. Full primary records referenced via TechCrunch.
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