The Pulse
Vishal Sikka’s Hang Ten raises $53M five weeks after initial seed round
Hang Ten Systems says its second seed round, led by Xora, brings total funding to $85 million as the enterprise AI services company expands delivery and engineering capacity.
AI.info Team ·
Vishal Sikka’s new company is betting that enterprise software can be built by small teams supported by AI, while the systems integrators it seeks to challenge still carry responsibility for large, complex deployments. Hang Ten Systems has now raised $53 million to press that case, five weeks after closing its first $32 million seed round, according to the company.
The Menlo Park, California-headquartered startup said on September 16 that the new funding was led by Xora, a Temasek-backed fund. Mayfield, which led Hang Ten’s first round, and Aramco Ventures also participated. The latest investment brings Hang Ten’s total funding to $85 million.
Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, one of the company’s investors, has joined its board. Other backers include Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan and Micron chairman and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, according to Hang Ten’s funding announcement.
Hang Ten puts implementation ahead of another AI model
Hang Ten is not developing a foundation model. The company sells advisory, transformation and applied-AI services to large enterprises, using agentic code generation, a reusable skills library and domain expertise to build, modify and operate business software.
Its work covers software development, finance and finance analytics, enterprise migrations and human resources. The company says it targets large organizations that need software adapted to their internal processes rather than another generic application.
“Enterprise technology has long been one of the largest cost lines in essential industries — slow to change, and slower still to translate AI into real economic value. The bottleneck is implementation: deploying it securely, economically and at speed. That takes a different kind of services partner. Hang Ten's team has built and operated these systems from the inside, and its model is delivering value faster with smaller teams, with early results already holding up in production.
The company has moved quickly from thesis to customer commitments to delivery, and that combination of speed and substance is what stands out. We see the same urgency here in Singapore and across the broader region, where enterprises are racing to deploy AI in core operations.”
— Phil Inagaki, managing partner and chief investment officer at Xora
The statement reflects Hang Ten’s argument that the difficult part of enterprise AI is not access to models but getting systems into production under the controls required by large companies.
Five weeks, several contracts and a larger seed round
Hang Ten says the two seed rounds closed five weeks apart. During that period, it signed several multi-million-dollar contracts across advisory and development engagements with global enterprises. Delivery is underway for several projects and has successfully concluded for a few, the company said.
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy is among the enterprises working with Hang Ten.
“We started working with Hang Ten two months ago with a short list of outcomes we needed proven. They delivered — with a quality and speed that genuinely impressed us. That level of execution is why we have widened the scope of our work together,” Vinod Philip, CEO of Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, said in Hang Ten’s announcement.
Hang Ten also says it is working with Aramco on applications supporting its operations across several functions. Mahdi Aladel, CEO of Aramco Ventures, said in the announcement:
“We spend a great deal of time assessing where AI can realistically be applied in a business of our scale. What makes Hang Ten compelling is the breadth. The more closely we look at their approach, the more functions and use cases we find across our own operations where it would fit. Teams across our business are keen to work with them, and projects are already being scoped. That is the basis of our enthusiasm for the company and for the opportunity ahead of it.”
— Mahdi Aladel, CEO of Aramco Ventures
Expansion plans
The company said the additional capital will fund delivery capacity for engagements now underway, expansion of its engineering and consulting organization, and continued development of its platform, infrastructure and agentic skills library.
Hang Ten’s announcement gives no valuation. The company describes itself as an enterprise AI services business that helps large enterprises adopt AI through an AI-native delivery model built on agentic code generation, a reusable skills library and domain expertise.
“All my life I have believed that technology is at its best when it amplifies people, helping us do what no one could do before. AI can be the most powerful amplifier we have ever built. But in the enterprise, AI's power must go hand-in-hand with reliability. At Hang Ten, we bring the power of AI to the world's most important businesses, with systems they can depend on. In just months, our customers have shown us what is possible. We are deeply grateful to the Xora fund team, backed by Temasek.
Their partnership opens the door to Singapore, Southeast Asia and the world, and we are just getting started.”
— Dr. Vishal Sikka, founder and chief executive officer of Hang Ten Systems