About AXL
AXL is a venture studio building the next generation of human-centric AI-powered companies in Toronto. Our mission is to fl ip the script on Canadian innovation: creating great Canadian companies that carry our innovations and values to the world. AXL is an early stage venture capital company + AI development Lab + accelerator all in one. We are a world-class assembly of technology commercialization experts and top-tier researchers. Our founders have raised more than $200M, 200+ patents held, 24+ startup exits, and 26,000+ academic citations between us. Through our Catalyst Program, we partner with Canada's leading enterprises, transforming their toughest AI challenges into market-defi ning opportunities, co-created with our world-class team.
About the Role
The AXL Partnership team is growing! We're looking for an energetic new-business hunter to bring in the corporate partners AXL builds ventures & AI related intellectual property with. Your role is to identify, pursue, and close two distinct offers: full Catalyst corporate partnerships (ongoing, co-creation relationships built to launch ventures together) and standalone Catalyst engagements (fi xed-scope, one-off innovation sprints that give an enterprise a fast, low-risk way to experience AXL's value). Because our model depends on co-building ventures with our partners, every deal you close is a qualifi cation decision, not just a revenue event. A standalone engagement and a full partnership call for different depths of commitment, and part of your job is knowing which one is the right fi t for a given prospect right now. Corporate partnerships at AXL are driven top down: they get signed when a CEO or another C-suite leader is personally convinced this is worth doing. You need to be someone who can walk into that conversation, hold your own, and walk out with a signature.
The Mindset We Need
Human-centric in how you sell: You understand what a founder, board, or CEO actually needs before you pitch anything. You've sold to, negotiated with, or partnered with executives at that level before, and you know how those conversations differ from a mid-management sale. That same instinct lets you tell the difference between a company that wants to buy a service and one that's genuinely ready to co-create, and you'd rather walk away from a bad-fi t logo than force a deal that won't hold up once the venture-building & IP generation starts.
Genuine investment in the relationship: You show up as a real partner to the executives you're courting, not a vendor working an angle. The trust you build before a contract is signed is what makes the partnership real after it is. You're wired for new business, energized by building that trust from scratch rather than managing an account that already exists.
Urgent, without overselling what isn't real yet: Enterprise sales cycles at this level are long and often unstructured, and AXL's own model keeps evolving. You move with urgency to get the right partners signed now, build your own pipeline discipline rather than waiting for one to be handed to you, and stay honest with executives about what's proven versus what's still taking shape.
Recruiting co-founders, not closing customers: You treat every partner you bring in as someone who will help build what's next, not a logo to close. That shapes how you qualify: you're selecting people who want to build alongside AXL, because that's who you're recruiting them to become.
What You'll Do
- Build and manage a pipeline of net-new enterprise and mid-market prospects across both standalone
Catalyst engagements and the full Catalyst Partnership program.
- Own the full new-business sales cycle for both offers: prospecting, outreach, discovery, qualification,
proposal, negotiation, and closing, from first contact to a signed engagement or partnership agreement.
- Qualify prospects on strategic fit, not just budget and authority: innovation appetite, internal alignment, and genuine willingness to build together rather than simply buy a service, then match each prospect to the right offer for where they are today.
- Identify and engage founders, board members, CEOs, and other C-suite leaders who can personally sponsor and champion an engagement or partnership.
- Translate AXL's venture studio model into a compelling, tailored case for why an enterprise should bring AXL in, whether that starts with a standalone Catalyst engagement or a full corporate partnership.
- Represent AXL at industry events, the State of AI Summit, and other partner-facing activities to build a
pipeline of future clients and partners.
- Hand off signed engagements and partnerships cleanly to the teams responsible for delivery, onboarding, and ongoing success, with full context on what was sold and why the client or partner is a strong fit.
- Maintain accurate pipeline tracking, forecasting, and reporting across both offers.
What We're Looking For
- 5+ years of experience in enterprise sales or new-business development, with a track record of engaging
founders, board members, CEOs, or other C-suite executives directly (top-down selling, not bottom-up or
mid-management sales).
- Proven track record carrying a quota and closing complex, multi-stakeholder, net-new B2B deals with
enterprise clients. Pure hunting experience, not account management or renewals.
- Comfortable running two connected sales motions at once: selling a fixed-scope, one-off engagement and selling a longer-term strategic partnership, and knowing which to lead with for a given prospect.
- Strong judgment for qualifying prospects beyond budget and authority, able to assess whether a company is genuinely a fit for a co-creation or venture-building relationship.
- Commercial instinct and business judgment strong enough to hold a credible conversation with a CEO or
founder about their strategic priorities.
- Excellent presentation, negotiation, and relationship-building skills.
- Comfort operating in a fast-moving, interdisciplinary environment with limited structure.
Bonus Points For
- Experience at a top-tier design, innovation, or AI strategy consultancy.
- Experience originating or running corporate partnerships from the enterprise or brand side.
- An existing network of founders, board members, or C-suite leaders in the Toronto or broader Canadian
ecosystem.
- Experience selling into corporate innovation, R&D, or transformation budgets specifically, rather than general enterprise software sales.
- Familiarity with venture studio, accelerator, or corporate-innovation business models.
Our Approach to Partnership
We don't chase logos. Whether it's a standalone Catalyst engagement or a full corporate partnership, every deal we sign is one AXL intends to build on, so the bar isn't "will they sign," it's "should they." That means qualifying hard on fit before we qualify on budget, and it means the person selling this has to be trusted enough by a founder or CEO to have that honest a conversation, built on the same genuine investment we expect a client or partner to bring to us. The best clients and partners aren't always the biggest names. They're the ones with real appetite for co-creation, the internal alignment to move fast, and leadership willing to put skin in the game alongside us, because everyone who works with AXL, from a single engagement onward, is stepping into the future as a founder of what we build together.
What Success Looks
Like First 90 days: You've built a qualifi ed pipeline of net-new enterprise and SME prospects across both offers, run discovery and qualifi cation conversations with founders and C-suite stakeholders, and advanced your fi rst standalone engagements and partnerships toward signature.
First year: You are consistently and independently sourcing, qualifying, and closing new Catalyst engagements and corporate partnerships that are a strong fit for AXL's model, establishing yourself as AXL's primary driver of new business across both offers.
