Ex-Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka’s Hang Ten Bags $32M Seed to Ride AI Wave

For founders and VCs, this deal signals a clear market signal: investors are doubling down on repeat entrepreneurs with deep enterprise networks who can articulate a credible path from AI hype to hard business outcomes. Sikka’s tenure at SAP and Infosys, paired with a bold vision for agentic code generation, drew tier-1 backers in a crowded AI landscape.

Former Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka has re-entered the startup arena with Hang Ten Systems, an enterprise AI company that disclosed a $32 million seed round led by Mayfield, with strategic backing from Aramco Ventures and board participation from Jerry Yang. Launched from Palo Alto on June 23, 2026, and announced the following day, the venture aims to solve a persistent pain point: large organizations are pouring billions into AI but failing to translate experimentation into measurable productivity gains. Sikka’s thesis, elaborated across his LinkedIn and social media posts, is that the real opportunity lies not in building frontier models but in applying generative AI to the mundane, costly, and slow process of customizing, integrating, and maintaining enterprise software—areas where traditional system integrators and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) vendors have dominated for decades. By combining agentic AI-powered code generation, a reusable software capabilities library, and specialized engineering expertise, Hang Ten claims it can build, modify, and run business software at a fraction of the traditional cost and time, directly attacking the multi-hundred-billion-dollar enterprise IT services market.

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He then founded Vianai Systems to bring AI-driven decision-making tools to businesses, raising over $50 million.

The round’s structure and the caliber of backers reveal much about current VC sentiment. Mayfield, a firm known for enterprise SaaS and infrastructure bets, leads the round, while Saudi Aramco’s venture arm adds strategic depth, pointing to potential energy-sector opportunities already materializing with named customer Siemens Energy. The presence of Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo and a seasoned tech investor, on the board signals credibility and a long-term view. Sikka explicitly described AI as “a massive new wave” and tied the company’s name to the surfing maneuver of walking to the front of the board—a metaphor for mastering the wave rather than merely riding it. This rhetoric, paired with concrete early customers like healthcare giant Fresenius, suggests that Hang Ten is not a concept-stage company but one already generating revenue and enterprise traction, even if revenue specifics remain undisclosed.