K

Kai Cyber

Agentic AI platform for IT/OT defense

Director of Strategic Accounts

Full-TimeUpdated on 10/20/2026
No salary listed
Expert
Remote in UK
Remote
Sales & Account ManagementAccount Executive

About the job

Requirements
  • At least 8 years of B2B enterprise software sales experience, including a track record of closing six- and seven-figure deals with Global 2000 or Fortune 500 accounts.
  • Ability to build a pipeline, open new customer accounts, and meet sales targets without relying on inbound leads or existing relationships.
  • Startup or high-growth company sales experience, including earning deals without relying on an established brand.
  • Cybersecurity or an adjacent technical security background, with the ability to speak credibly to CISOs, security architects, and SOC leaders.
  • Deep experience running consultative, multi-stakeholder sales cycles with C-level security and IT executives.
  • Fluency in a formal enterprise sales methodology such as MEDDICC, MEDDPICC, Force Management, Challenger, or an equivalent methodology.
  • Must be based in the UK, have deep EMEA market knowledge, and established relationships in EMEA.
  • Must have the legal right to work in the United Kingdom without visa sponsorship.
Responsibilities
  • Own the full sales cycle from prospecting to close across enterprise accounts in the EMEA territory, focusing on the UK and surrounding markets.
  • Build and manage a personal sales pipeline, acting as the hunter, closer, and relationship owner.
  • Engage C-level decision-makers across security, IT, compliance, and engineering, including CISOs, CIOs, security architects, and their teams.
  • Run a structured, outcome-driven sales process through complex, multi-stakeholder enterprise deals.
  • Collaborate with Solutions Engineering to deliver compelling demonstrations and manage proofs of value measured against customer business outcomes.
  • Work with Product and Engineering to bring field intelligence into the roadmap and represent the voice of the customer within the company.
  • Provide real-time feedback on messaging, pricing, and competitive positioning as the go-to-market motion evolves.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience selling to accounts undergoing security modernization or AI-driven transformation initiatives.
  • Familiarity with AI-native platforms or emerging security technology categories.

About the company

Kai Cyber builds an agentic AI platform that autonomously runs threat intelligence, exposure management, detection, and response across IT and operational-technology environments. Its main product uses software agents that reason and act at machine speed to replace fragmented security tools and manual workflows. The platform integrates threat intelligence, exposure management, detection, and response into a unified agent-based system, operating across enterprise IT and OT layers. Kai differentiates itself by automating decision-making and actions at scale with autonomous agents, aiming to cover both IT and OT environments rather than relying on separate tools or manual processes. The company’s goal is to move security from reactive alerts and stitched tools to proactive, agent-driven defense that can scale globally and protect large customers in industries such as energy, pharmaceuticals, automotive, and hospitality.

Company Size

51-200

Company Stage

Late Stage VC

Total Funding

$125M

Headquarters

San Jose, California

Founded

2025

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • March 2026 funding from Evolution Equity and N47 gives Kai aggressive runway.
  • July 29, 2026 Auto Remediation expands product value and shortens remediation cycles.
  • Chevron Catalyst graduation and Fortune 500 demand validate Kai’s enterprise and OT positioning.

What critics are saying

  • CrowdStrike, Microsoft, Palo Alto, and Torq already crowd agentic-security buyer attention.
  • Kai still lacks public proof of durable retention beyond seven-figure bookings and launch hype.
  • If autonomy misfires in energy or pharmaceuticals, one breach or outage can freeze adoption.

What makes Kai Cyber unique

  • Founders Galina Antova and Damiano Bolzoni bring Claroty and SecurityMatters credibility.
  • Kai unifies threat intelligence, exposure management, detection, response, and OT workflows.
  • Auto Remediation and Anthropic Cyber Verification deepen autonomous execution beyond dashboards.

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Benefits

  • Remote Work Options
  • Stock Options

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

-5%

1 year growth

-5%

2 year growth

-5%
Kubex AI
Sep 28th, 2026
What tools detect and resolve Kubernetes resource contention automatically?

What tools detect and resolve Kubernetes resource contention automatically? Published on: Sep 28, 2026 Quick answer. Kubex automatically detects and resolves Kubernetes resource contention by continuously rightsizing and rebalancing CPU, memory, and GPU allocations, so shared GPUs stay fully used and workloads stop competing for capacity. For CPU and memory, contention such as CPU throttling, OOM kills, and noisy neighbors is largely handled by accurate requests and limits, Quality of Service classes, and autoscalers like VPA and HPA. GPU contention is harder because Kubernetes treats GPUs as whole devices, leaving expensive GPUs mostly idle while other teams wait in a queue. Solving it takes GPU sharing through the NVIDIA GPU Operator (MIG, time-slicing, and MPS) and fair-share scheduling through tools like KAI Scheduler, Kueue, and Volcano. Those tools depend on accurate GPU requests, though. Kubex closes the loop by integrating with KAI Scheduler to continuously rightsize GPU fractions, enforce GPU memory limits through HAMi-core, consolidate underutilized GPU nodes, and apply policy-driven controls over which workloads participate. Resource contention happens when workloads compete for more capacity than a node or cluster can provide. For CPU and memory, the symptoms are familiar: CPU throttling, OOM kills, and noisy neighbors slowing latency-sensitive services. These are largely solved problems, addressed by accurate requests and limits, Quality of Service classes, and autoscalers like VPA and HPA that adjust sizing and replicas as demand changes. GPU contention is different, and far more expensive to get wrong. Why GPU contention is harder. Kubernetes natively treats GPUs as whole, indivisible devices. A pod that needs a fraction of a GPU still reserves the entire device, and nothing else can use the rest. This leads to two opposite problems at once: GPUs sitting mostly idle, and other teams stuck waiting in a queue for capacity that technically exists. The scale of waste is significant. In one analysis of an inference environment with hundreds of GPUs, Kubex found only about 20 percent of containers were using their full GPU allocation at any given time, with most consuming less than half. Solving this requires two capabilities working together: GPU sharing, so multiple workloads can use one device, and fair-share scheduling, so teams get equitable access when demand exceeds supply. GPU sharing options. The NVIDIA GPU Operator supports hardware and software sharing methods, including Multi-Instance GPU (MIG) partitioning on supported GPUs, time-slicing, and Multi-Process Service (MPS). These work, but partitions are typically static and configured per node, so they don't adapt as workload demand changes. Fair-share scheduling. The default Kubernetes scheduler places pods one at a time and has no concept of team quotas or fairness. Batch and AI-focused schedulers fill this gap. KAI Scheduler is an open-source, Kubernetes-native scheduler for large-scale AI workloads, originally developed by NVIDIA. It supports GPU sharing, where pods can request either a specific amount of GPU memory or a fraction of a device. It also provides hierarchical queues with quotas and limits, workload priority and preemption, gang scheduling for multi-pod AI workloads, and topology-aware placement. Its queue model lets teams use idle capacity beyond their guaranteed quota, then reclaims it fairly when other teams need their share. Recent releases added time-based fair-share, so historical usage factors into allocation decisions. Kueue is a Kubernetes SIG project for job queueing, quota management, and fair sharing across teams, well suited to batch and training jobs. Volcano is a CNCF batch scheduler offering gang scheduling, queues, and fair-share policies for AI, big data, and HPC workloads. The missing piece: keeping allocations accurate. Schedulers enforce fairness and placement at scheduling time, but they depend on the GPU fractions workloads request. If those requests are oversized, sharing is inefficient. If they're undersized, workloads contend for memory. Until recently, KAI did not enforce memory limits or isolate memory between processes on a shared GPU, so an undersized fraction could still consume more than its share. How Kubex integrates with KAI Scheduler. Kubex builds on KAI to make GPU sharing operational. KAI provides the scheduling foundation, while Kubex continuously observes, rightsizes, and rebalances workloads to improve GPU utilization over time. Continuous GPU rightsizing: Kubex automatically rightsizes GPU fractions, upsizes and rebalances inference workloads when demand increases, and scales allocations back when usage drops. This resolves contention by correcting allocations as demand shifts, rather than waiting for failures. Memory enforcement: KAI Scheduler now integrates with HAMi-core to enforce GPU memory limits for shared workloads, and Kubex supports the latest KAI stack so Kubex-managed GPU fractions benefit from this enforcement. HAMi-core requires no application changes; it intercepts CUDA memory allocations and enforces the limit tied to the Kubex-optimized fraction. GPU node consolidation: Kubex can identify underutilized GPU nodes within compatible node pools and determine whether shared GPU workloads can fit elsewhere. Policy-driven adoption: Platform teams decide which workloads participate, how aggressively allocations can change, and what utilization thresholds trigger adjustments, so you can start small and expand. Useful links: For CPU and memory, standard autoscalers handle most contention. For GPUs, you need sharing, fair-share scheduling, and allocations that stay accurate over time. KAI Scheduler delivers the first two, and Kubex closes the loop by continuously rightsizing and rebalancing GPU fractions within your policies. Published on: Sep 28, 2026 Experience automated K8s, GPU & AI workload resource optimization in action.

Yahoo Finance
Apr 2nd, 2026
Kai appoints Nick Degnan as CRO amid surging demand for agentic AI cybersecurity

Kai, a cybersecurity startup developing an agentic AI platform for autonomous defence, has appointed Nick Degnan as chief revenue officer. The company's platform aims to replace fragmented tools and human-limited workflows with machine-speed security execution. Degnan brings over 20 years of experience in cybersecurity and enterprise technology. He previously served as chief revenue officer at AppOmni and Axonius, and as vice president of global corporate sales at Tanium. In his new role, Degnan will lead Kai's global go-to-market expansion, including sales, partnerships and customer success. The appointment comes as enterprise demand for agentic AI security solutions reaches an inflection point, according to the company. Kai's platform is designed to execute security work end-to-end at machine speed whilst maintaining human expert accuracy.

PR Newswire
Apr 2nd, 2026
Kai appoints Nick Degnan as CRO following $125M emergence from stealth

Kai, an agentic AI cybersecurity platform company, has appointed Nick Degnan as chief revenue officer. Degnan brings over 20 years of experience building revenue organisations in cybersecurity and enterprise technology, most recently serving as CRO at AppOmni and Axonius. The appointment comes as Kai scales following its $125 million emergence from stealth. The company's platform executes security work autonomously at machine speed, replacing traditional fragmented tools and human-limited workflows. Degnan will lead Kai's global go-to-market expansion, including sales, partnerships and customer success, as the company builds on growing demand from Fortune 500 organisations. Founded by the creators of Claroty and SecurityMatters, Kai recently hired CISO Alfredo Hickman as part of its expansion efforts.

PR Newswire
Mar 19th, 2026
Kai appoints Alfredo Hickman as CISO following $125M funding round

Kai, an AI cybersecurity platform company, has appointed Alfredo Hickman as chief information security officer. The San Jose-based startup, which recently emerged from stealth with $125 million in funding, develops agentic AI systems designed to execute security work at machine speed. Hickman brings nearly 20 years of cybersecurity experience. He previously served as CISO at Obsidian Security, where he built the security organisation from inception, and led security product engineering at Rackspace Managed Security. His earlier career included roles at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and the US Department of Defense. In his new role, Hickman will oversee Kai's security systems whilst operating the company's AI platform internally. Founded by the creators of Claroty and SecurityMatters, Kai serves Fortune 500 organisations.

VentureBurn
Mar 11th, 2026
Kai Secures $125M to Build AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platform

Kai secures $125M to build ai-powered cybersecurity platform. 11 March 2026 Key Takeaways * Kai raised $125 million in combined seed and Series A funding led by Evolution Equity Partners with participation from N47. * The startup is building an agentic AI cybersecurity platform capable of autonomously detecting and responding to cyber threats. * The new funding will support AI research, platform scaling, and global expansion as demand for AI-driven cybersecurity continues to grow. Kai has just announced $125 million in funding as they prepare for the launch of their online digital security systems for the AI era. The funding was provided by Kai's seed and Series A investors and covers Evolution Equity Partners and N47 alongside several strategic investors. Kai is based in San Jose and has positioned itself along the spheres of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. These two fields are the fastest-growing in enterprise technology. The company founders believe that artificial intelligence cyberattacks are evolving too quickly and feel that they are starting a new phase in developing cyber defense technologies that will operate at machine speed. Two successful entrepreneurs in the cybersecurity sector are Galina Antova and Dr Damiano Bolzoni, co-founders of Kai. Both founders have previously built successful companies in cybersecurity. Antova is a co-founder of Claroty, which aims to protect industrial and operational technology environments. Bolzoni is a co-founder of SecurityMatters, an operational technology company that was acquired by Forescout Technologies in 2018, and he is an operational technology-centric firm. The cybersecurity experience of Antova and Bolzoni, especially in operational technology, is fundamental to the company's strategy. The company aims at providing a single platform for converged cyber defense for enterprise systems. A new approach to cyber defense. Kai's principal innovation is the agentic AI cybersecurity platform, which aims to autonomously identify, evaluate, and respond to cyber threats, reducing the need for human involvement to a minimum. Whereas existing security tools are generally siloed, Kai's platform combines various cybersecurity processes into a single integrated pipeline. This platform employs smart AI agents that are capable of reasoning, adapting, and acting across multiple dimensions of enterprise security, including threat intelligence, exposure management, vulnerability analysis, and incident response. The company contends that cybersecurity systems that enterprises rely on are siloed and fragmented. Due to tool and dashboard proliferation, security staff are hampered by having to monitor many separate systems. This siloed problem causes increased response times to cyber threats and increases the risk profiles of potential cyber attacks. Kai addresses this challenge by replacing fragmented security systems with autonomous AI agents that integrate and automate security workflows across the enterprise. Strategic growth. Kai's funding comes as the world rushes toward AI-based solutions for cybersecurity. Automated, machine-speed attacks threaten almost every organization, competing at speeds and sophistication beyond human response. Investors see AI in vendors' portals as a key means for defense against such threats. Cybersecurity, according to Galina Antova, becomes an AI arms race. Security must defend with AI as capable as the attackers. Kai builds for the AI era, avoiding adaptations to older technologies and achieving early, strong adoption and funding. Kai positions for next-generation cybersolutions for large enterprises. I'm a crypto writer with 4+ years of experience passionate about turning big, technical ideas into content anyone can understand. From blockchain to stablecoins to everything in between, I enjoy helping readers stay informed in a space that never stops moving. Disclaimer VentureBurn is a media platform covering the latest in cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, venture capital, and the startup ecosystem. Opinions expressed on VentureBurn are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment advice. Before making any high-risk investments in digital assets or emerging technologies, readers should conduct their own due diligence. All transactions and financial decisions are made at your own risk, and any losses incurred are solely your responsibility. VentureBurn does not endorse or recommend the buying or selling of any digital assets and is not a licensed investment advisor. Please note that VentureBurn may participate in affiliate marketing programs.