Founding Sales Lead — AI Security

Kapalins · India

Title: Founding Sales Lead — AI Security, India (Hunter)

Location: PAN India (Remote). Delhi-NCR / Mumbai / Bengaluru preferred.

Compensation: ₹40–50L fixed + aggressive variable + uncapped commission + equity

This is a founding sales seat with a leadership title attached. You will not inherit a team, a pipeline, a marketing engine, or an SE. For the first two to three quarters you carry the India number yourself, with the founders. If you win, you hire underneath you — and the title becomes VP.

If you want to run a function that already exists, this is the wrong role. We would rather say so now than in month four.

ABOUT KAPĀLINS:

Kapālins builds an AI-native security, governance and FinOps platform for enterprises adopting generative AI — risk, model and data exposure, compliance evidence, and token cost across LLMs, copilots, MCP and agentic systems.

Enterprises in India and the Middle East are deploying GenAI faster than they are governing it. Security and risk teams are being asked to sign off on systems they cannot fully see. That gap is the market. 2026 is the category-formation year for AI security, the way 2015–16 was for cloud security.

We are hiring the first commercial leader for India. The platform is in production and in POC with design partners. What you will not inherit is a playbook, a logo wall, or inbound.

WHAT YOU WILL ACTUALLY DO:

• Own the India number end to end: territory, prospecting, discovery, POC, commercials, close.
• Build relationships with CISOs, CDOs, CTOs and Heads of Risk — starting with AI-heavy mid-market fintech, healthtech, insurtech and GCCs, where time-to-value is fastest and procurement friction is lowest.
• Create budget where none is allocated yet. AI security rarely has its own line item. You will sell into risk, data governance and compliance budgets first.
• Run the technical conversation yourself in the early days, with founder support. There is no SE bench to hide behind.
• Build the repeatable motion: ICP, qualification, objection handling, pricing guardrails, and a small partner / distributor layer that does not turn us into a services firm.
• Feed the roadmap. What you lose deals on will shape what we build next.
• Hire and lead the team once the motion is proven. Not before.

WHAT YOU NEED TO HAVE DONE:

We care about evidence, not adjectives. In the room you should be able to walk us through specifics:

• Product-company sales. A product with a roadmap, a live POC process, and a named competitor. Not SI. Not staffing. Not product-engineering / ADMS. Not distributor margin.
• Personally originated and closed net-new logos in the last 24 months. The ticket band that fits this platform is roughly ₹25 lakh–2 crore (USD 70K–250K). You can state deal count, average size, cycle length, and who you beat — and the numbers reconcile when we ask.
• Named, reachable buyers — CISO, CDO, Head of Risk, Head of AI — you could call this month, with a straight answer on how fast they call back. A claimed “network” is not enough.
• A point of view on where to sell first, and where you will not. Large-bank GSI-locked accounts and PSU / GeM motions are usually the trap for an early-stage vendor. Mid-market regulated buyers and GCCs are the open door.
• Scar tissue from selling before a category had a budget line. Valid analogues: cloud security 2015–18, SASE / CASB / DLP, DSPM / CNAPP, early CrowdStrike / Zscaler / Netskope / Wiz-class motions, IAM / NHI into regulated buyers. You do not need five years of “AI for cybersecurity” on the CV. You do need to be teachable, fast, on shadow AI, non-human identity, prompt injection, agent / MCP risk, DPDP evidence and AI FinOps. We will invest in the platform fluency. We will not teach hunting.

A note on the AI part: if you have deep security-selling credibility (DLP, CASB, DSPM, SASE, IAM / NHI, data governance, GRC, cloud security into regulated buyers) and your AI-security knowledge is real but recent, apply. The commercial track record is the harder half.

WHO THIS IS NOT FOR:

• Sellers whose numbers came from renewals, expansion, or an assigned book.
• People who have only sold inside a category leader with marketing-generated pipeline.
• Managers who have not personally closed a deal in the last few years.
• Services, staffing or SI leaders who want to “take both hats.”
• Anyone who needs process, brand and headcount in place before they can perform.
• Anyone whose plan is PSU tenders, Make-in-India paperwork, or a 10-month RFP.

WHAT WE OFFER:

• ₹40–50L fixed, a serious variable component, uncapped commission above quota, and equity in a company at the beginning of its story.
• A direct line to the founders, real influence over product and market strategy, and no layer between you and the decision.
• First-mover position in a category that is forming in India and the Middle East right now.

WHY SOMEONE GOOD SAYS YES:

Timing. AI security in India in 2026 is where cloud security was in 2016. There is a short window to be the person who defined the market, rather than the person who joined it.

Ownership, not inheritance. You set the ICP, the pricing posture and the playbook.

Economics. Uncapped commission plus equity in an early company. If you build this, you own a share of what you built.

HOW TO APPLY:

Do not send a CV alone. Write to swati.maheshwari@kapalins.com with the subject line:

Founding Sales Lead | [Your Name]

In the same email, include both of the following. Applications without both will not be reviewed.

1. One paragraph. One net-new deal you personally originated and closed: how you found the first conversation, who signed, and what nearly killed it.

2. Eight to ten accounts you would call in month one. For each: company, buyer name, title, last contact (month is enough), and why they would take a meeting on AI security this month.

The paragraph and the list matter more than the CV.

Know more:

Kapālins is an equal opportunity employer.