Hang Ten adds $53 million to seed, five weeks after first close

Sikka left Infosys in 2017 and went on to co-found enterprise AI startup VianAI in 2019. That company raised $50 million in seed funding and later raised $140 million in a 2021 round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Sikka departed VianAI in April, according to his LinkedIn profile, and told TechCrunch that VianAI is "going through a transaction," declining to provide further details. Hang Ten, founded in May, therefore arrives as his second attempt at applying AI to enterprise software, this time with a model-agnostic advisory and build offering rather than a model of its own.

The body frames Hang Ten's edge around process adaptation, not another AI model. Co-founder and chief design officer Sanjay Rajagopalan said the startup's engineers use an in-house framework called Hobie, which packages reusable AI "skills" for regulated industries and complex enterprise software projects. The customer roster spans Fresenius Kabi, Saudi Aramco, and Siemens Energy, and Sikka said some engagements are replacing incumbent providers, while more than half of current opportunities are new projects companies had previously put off.

The stakes for Hang Ten hinge on whether its promised efficiency advantage holds up in production. Rajagopalan said the startup can use teams of about two to four people for some projects that might previously have required about 30, and the company promises customers a 10-fold improvement in cost, speed, or a combination of the two — although customers or independent third parties still handle final quality checks and certification. Sikka said Hang Ten has turned down acquisition offers from "very big companies" for now, which suggests the startup's next move — scale or sale — may depend on how those early contracts perform.