Former Infosys CEO launches startup to disrupt IT services

For decades, the global IT services industry has minted fortunes by handling the unglamorous but essential work of customizing, integrating, and maintaining enterprise software. Now, Vishal Sikka, the former CEO of Indian tech giant Infosys, is placing a massive bet that artificial intelligence can take over that very same work.

His new venture, Hang Ten Systems, officially launched Wednesday with a $32 million seed round led by Mayfield, alongside strategic backing from Aramco Ventures and several angel investors. The startup’s board includes Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, and its mission is to help enterprises continuously build, modify, and operate software using AI-driven development and automation. This places Hang Ten squarely in a market where legacy IT services firms, including Infosys itself, are scrambling to pivot through partnerships with leading AI labs like Anthropic and OpenAI.

The timing of the launch is critical. A fierce debate is underway: will AI dramatically expand the total addressable market for IT services, or will it fundamentally dismantle the traditional model of how enterprise software is built and maintained? Some enterprises are clearly eager to test the AI-services hypothesis, particularly when it comes from a leader of Sikka’s caliber. He spent 12 years building enterprise software at SAP and later served on Oracle’s board. Mayfield Managing Partner Navin Chaddha told TechCrunch that Hang Ten “just got started a month back” and already has paying customers.

The startup is already working with clients like Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy and Fresenius on AI-native project delivery. In a blog post announcing the venture, the 59-year-old Sikka wrote that Hang Ten is helping large enterprises “hang ten on the biggest wave of our lifetimes.” Headquartered in the Bay Area, the company is actively hiring across delivery, engineering, sales, and leadership roles, with plans to expand globally to meet demand.

The early team is stacked with executives who have worked alongside Sikka for years at SAP, Infosys, and his previous enterprise AI startup, VianAI. Co-founders include CTO Navin Budhiraja, Chief Design Officer Sanjay Rajagopalan, and Tao Liu, Senior Vice President of Forward Deployed Engineering. After stepping down as Infosys CEO in 2017, Sikka founded VianAI, which emerged from stealth in 2019 with $50 million in seed funding and later raised $140 million from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 in 2021.

Chaddha emphasized that Hang Ten is distinct from VianAI. That earlier venture focused on enterprise AI applications and analytics tools designed to help businesses use AI in decision-making. Hang Ten, by contrast, is an enterprise AI services company built around agentic code generation, reusable AI skills, and deep domain expertise. Mayfield backed Hang Ten because of Sikka’s track record and the belief that the startup’s AI-native model can scale differently from traditional services firms. “Traditional services scale linearly with headcount,” Mayfield noted. “Hang Ten is built so its leverage grows with every project.”

Hang Ten enters the scene as investors debate how AI will reshape the economics of IT services. Analysts at Jefferies argued earlier this year that IT services may be among the first sectors to face meaningful AI disruption. Yet Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani recently countered that AI could actually expand the industry’s addressable market. Infosys itself has tried to frame AI as an opportunity, telling investors this month that “AI-first services” could represent a $300 billion to $400 billion market by 2030. The stakes are high: Infosys shares have fallen more than 35% this year as investors reassess the outlook for traditional IT services firms.