Ex-Infosys Leader Launches AI-Native Software Delivery Startup

Hang Ten Systems Launches With $32M in Venture Backing

Vishal Sikka, who spent 12 years at enterprise software vendor SAP before running Infosys from 2014 to 2017, is placing a bet that generative AI can commoditize the core work that has made IT services firms profitable for decades. According to TechCrunch, his newly formed startup Hang Ten Systems closed a $32M seed financing round on June 24, 2026, with Mayfield leading the round and strategic participation from Aramco Ventures. Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang joined the company’s board.

The premise is direct: instead of staffing teams to customize, integrate, and maintain software platforms for enterprise clients, Hang Ten deploys autonomous development agents built on large language models to perform these tasks continuously. According to TechCrunch, the company began operations roughly one month before the funding announcement and already counts customers including industrial equipment maker Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy and healthcare provider Fresenius.

A Veteran Entrepreneur Targeting Legacy Outsourcing

Sikka’s track record in enterprise technology lends credibility to the venture. Beyond his tenure at Infosys, his résumé includes board positions at Oracle and a previous startup, VianAI, which raised $50M in seed funding (2019) and $140M in a subsequent round (2021) led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. VianAI focused on enterprise AI applications and business analytics; Hang Ten, by contrast, targets agentic software delivery—a narrower but more labor-intensive market segment.

The startup assembled its founding team from executives with whom Sikka collaborated at multiple prior employers. Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Navin Budhiraja, Chief Design Officer Sanjay Rajagopalan, and Senior Vice President of Forward Deployed Engineering Tao Liu all come from Sikka’s network across SAP, Infosys, and VianAI. The company operates from headquarters in Silicon Valley and is recruiting across engineering, delivery, sales, and management roles to expand internationally.

Why This Matters

The launch crystallizes a strategic inflection point in enterprise software services. Traditional IT outsourcers—Infosys included—are defending against disruption by partnering with AI labs like Anthropic and OpenAI. Hang Ten instead proposes replacing those partnerships with proprietary autonomous agents, betting that the addressable market for pure development labor will shrink while demand for AI-native delivery accelerates. If the startup’s claimed early traction holds, vendors in the $220B IT services sector will face pressure to prove that human-centric delivery offers defensible value beyond what machines can produce at lower cost. Sikka’s credibility with enterprise buyers and access to customer referencess will likely determine whether Hang Ten becomes a category leader or a cautionary tale about timing mismatches in markets facing technological disruption.