Updated January 17, 2025
For the 7th year straight, I polled my 20,000+ VC Careers subscribers and others in the VC community to see how much salary, carry, and bonus they’re getting.
More than 600 people working in VC responded across:
- Institutional VCs
- Corporate Venture Capital teams
- Incubators + accelerators
- Family Offices (that often act like VCs)
Before we get into it, I want to take a moment to thank those who make it possible to bring you this survey every year, including:
2024 salary survey sponsors:
The I Mean Live Foundation
Building a more empathetic world through the power of storytelling
The hundreds of individual respondents and to the 24 supporting firms whose leaders directly shared compensation data, including:
And the results cover analyst, associate, senior associate, principal/VP, and partner-level roles.
It might make sense for me to start with some details on how VCs get paid, first, though.
How Do VCs Make Money? (VC Comp Structure)
There are 3 pieces that make up the compensation structure of a VC:
- Salary
- Bonus
- Carry
Salary
Salary is, well, salary.
It makes up the majority of a (non-intern) VCs comp in any given year.
Salary is usually paid out of a fund’s management fees.
Most VC funds above a certain size will charge a 2% or 2.5% management fee for the active investment years.
Smaller funds will have lower management fee percentages.
(And teeny tiny funds won’t pull any management fees.)
This is because a firm that has $500k or $2 million (or even $5 million) under management isn’t going to have much — or any — cash lying around to pay you a full-time salary.
That’s why you see some VCs who run small funds doing side hustles to pay the bills while they wait for their bets – (I mean, investments) – to pay off.
Bonus
Bonus isn’t a given like it is in investment banking or other traditional finance shops.
But many respondents (across all titles) say that they’re getting them.
And significant ones too.
More on that later.
Carry
Carry is shorthand for carried interest.
It’s the percentage of investment profits (often 20%, sometimes 25% or even 30%) that the partners in the VC firm get paid in addition to fund management fees.
You might have heard this talked about as the “2 and 20” model – the (typically) 2% management fee and the (typically) 20% carry.
In most firms, carry is divided up (often, unevenly) between the General Partners…
…with a few table scraps for the junior staffers.
Of course, there are exceptions.
For example, firms like Benchmark Capital divide the carry equally between all partners.
And according to some academic research, funds with an equitable split of the carry tend to outperform funds that don’t.
When do VCs get Carry?
No realized profits == No carry (i.e. Paper gains don’t count, and cash returns need not apply)
“Carry” is typically only realized after the limited partners in the fund have received over 1X of their invested capital back.
What’s left is the “profit,” and this is the money (the carry) that is divided up using the 20% / 80% distribution.
Typically, VCs don’t get carry until they climb the ranks…but more on that to come.
How often do VCs get carry?
You know that your average VC isn’t exactly generating great cash returns — so it’s pretty hard to get into that carry zone.
After all, VC funds as of late have consistently underperformed the S&P 500, NASDAQ, and Russell 2000.
A recent Kauffman Foundation study detailed VC performance as an asset class.
They found that the majority of funds in their study, 62 out of 100, failed to beat public market returns after fees and carry were paid.
(The Lowercase Capitals of the world? They’re the exception, not the rule.)
Who gets Carry in a VC firm?
Just like a startup isn’t going to pile on the equity for someone who isn’t a founder — a VC firm isn’t going to offer up a share of the profits until you’ve proven yourself.
Most funds follow traditional structures and really need the math to work out in their favor before they even dream of paying their juniors something that could be considered substantial carry.
That said, there are many nuances to carry distribution, with some firms employing different mechanisms such as “cliffs” and “accelerations” (or a lack thereof) to incentivize partners and/or lower-level employees to remain at the fund longer – as this can often positively signal LP’s.
Still, as a general rule of thumb, most mid and low-level employees at a fund do not earn much carry.
The data from the survey bears all this out, too.
Less than half of respondents at analyst levels had the potential to earn carry.
How long does it take to receive Carry?
But even if a fund ends up generating carry — it takes a loooong time.
Why?
- Venture capital is a waiting game. For example, at the early stage, you’re looking at 10 years (i.e. the average VC fund’s life cycle) to see any meaningful returns on your investment.
- Venture is a highly illiquid asset class. Sure, you have shops like Industry Ventures and exchanges like EquityZen that can help investors take money off the table — but it’s far from the level of liquidity and transparency that you would see in the public markets.
Why is Carry “pay to play’?
General partners have a “GP commit” (often around 2% of the total fund) that they have to pay in.
If they don’t have a lot of cash lying around, then they’ll take out a loan to fund that GP commit.
Or if they have enough management fees to draw from, they’ll use those to fund their commit and take a lower salary than they might have otherwise.
Makes sense, right?
If someone is thinking of writing you a check for millions, they probably want to see if you have some skin in the game.
But even if you’re not a GP, you can see this in action.
For example, one fund that I interviewed with had the junior staffers paying in for their carry — in order to get any (potential) carry out.
What this all sums up to is that, clearly, cash (compensation) is still king — and probably always will be — in the VC world.
And with all this (potential) money flying around (mostly) at the top, it only makes sense that the Associates and Analysts of the world want to climb the ranks…
How can you get more Carry?
But therein lies a common point of friction in the VC world…
To climb the ranks in a VC firm and go further down the venture capital career path requires a proven track record and trust, on both ends of the table – and this isn’t always easy to come by.
Why?
- Analysts/Associates want the deals they source to do well, so they can be biased when pitching these deals to an investment committee
- There’s usually a gray area when it comes to who should get credit for a successful investment
- There isn’t always transparency at a VC firm when it comes to financials and beyond
The good news?
At least in terms of that last point, we’re going to try and lift the veil.
2024 Venture Capital Compensation Trends
Salary and Bonus Trends
- Salary Increases: Salaries generally increased across roles, however, some roles, such as Analysts, saw only modest growth.
- Bonuses: Bonuses remain a part of total cash compensation across roles, firm types and stage.
AUM and Compensation Correlation
- The lack of a statistically significant correlation between Total Compensation and Assets Under Management (AUM) suggests that AUM does not have a strong direct relationship with the compensation levels of the respondents. This could indicate that other factors, such as role, experience, or firm type, play a more significant role in determining compensation than AUM does, or that the relationship between AUM and compensation is more complex or nuanced.
- It’s interesting to note that this was still true with multiple carry-only compensations, so even while some individuals may receive compensation solely in the form of carry, the overall trend remains that Total Compensation increases with age potentially indicating the older respondents may have had larger networks or more successful deal sourcing than their younger counterparts.
Carry as a Differentiator
- Carry allocation begins at the Associate level in some firms, particularly smaller ones, where cash compensation may be lower.
- Partner (Investments) at Institutional VC were the only group that reported 100% received carry
Year-Over-Year Comparison (2023 vs. 2024)
While overall salaries increased in 2024, the growth was less pronounced than in 2023, particularly at the Associate and Partner levels. This suggests a more cautious approach to salary increases, potentially influenced by macroeconomic factors.
Venture Capital Compensation by Job Title
How much money do venture capital Analysts and venture capital Senior Analysts make?
Analyst / Senior Analyst base salaries varied widely, ranging anywhere from $20K – $150K depending on the type of firm.
The overall average base salary for Analysts was $105K, up from $97K in 2023, an 8% increase. That was higher than the 6% increase seen from 2022 to 2023 but wasn’t quite the dramatic 23% rise we saw from 2021 to 2022, but Analyst pay in the survey still reached all-time highs in 2024.
| Role | Avg. Salary | Avg. Bonus | Avg. AUM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Analyst / Senior Analyst | $104,800 | $12,367 | $534M |
How much money do venture capital Associates make?
In the survey results, we saw venture capital Associate base salaries ranging from $9K – $225K.
Average base salary for Associates was $133K which was a 4.7% increase from $127K in 2023. This reverses some of the 7% decrease we saw from 2022 to 2023.
| Role | Avg. Salary | Avg. Bonus | Avg. AUM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Associate | $132,757 | $27,033 | $1,465M |
How much money do venture capital Senior Associates make?
VC Senior Associates salaries ranged from $87K – $230K. This was not as large of a range of data as compared to 2023 where the range spanned $60K – $360K.
Average base salary for Senior Associates rose 1.8% this year to $166K.
| Role | Avg. Salary | Avg. Bonus | Avg. AUM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior Associate | $166,142 | $33,304 | $845M |
How much money do venture capital Vice Presidents and Principals make?
In the survey results, we saw VC VP / Principal base salaries typically ranging from $42K to $500K.
Average base salary for Vice Presidents / Principals was $213K, a 2.3% increase from 2023. This is an all time high, the third consecutive year of increases in base pay.
| Role | Avg. Salary | Avg. Bonus | Avg. AUM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vice President / Principal | $213,001 | $38,548 | $565M |
How much money do investment-focused venture capital partners make?
According to the survey results, venture capital partner salaries in investments ranged from $0 – $720K. Many roles with $0 base salaries were carry-only positions. This can be typical in more senior positions, where the amount of carry is significant.
Average base salary for Partners is up 5.3%, from about $296K last year to $311K this year, which is an all time high.
| Role | Avg. Salary | Avg. Bonus | Avg. AUM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Partner Level (Investments) | $311,438 | $68,038 | $513M |
How much money do operations-focused venture capital partners make?
According to the survey results, venture capital partner salaries in operations ranged from $0 – $650K. Like the partners salaries in investments, many roles with $0 base salaries were carry-only positions.
Average base salary for Partners (Operations) was $221K which is an increase of 0.9% from $219K in 2023.
| Role | Avg. Salary | Avg. Bonus | Avg. AUM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Partner Level (Operations) | $221,382 | $48,452 | $948M |
How much money do Platform roles in venture capital make?
We considered a role “platform” when it was a role within marketing, community, investor relations, etc. within venture capital firms.
For venture capital platform roles, salaries ranged from $83K – $350K.
Average base salary for these roles was $147K, a 16.6% decrease from $176K in 2023.
This is a major decrease as the average base salary stayed almost identical in 2022 and 2023. This was the third year we opened up this category of jobs, so we’ll have deeper comparative data in future years of the survey.
| Role | Avg. Salary | Avg. Bonus | Avg. AUM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform | $146,958 | $11,317 | $707M |
Methodology and Limitations
The 2024 survey was conducted from November 1 through December 31, 2024, and distributed via email to all of John Gannon’s newsletter subscribers through an online survey.
A total of 486 individuals responded voluntarily, while 24 firm leaders submitted data on behalf of their firms, amounting to 141 additional responses. This represents a significant increase in firm-level submissions compared to 2023, which had 55.
The target population consisted of individuals working within Venture Capital, including Traditional VC, Corporate VC, Incubators & Accelerators, and similar investment funds.
The overall number of responses was slightly higher than in 2023, and the larger share of firm-wide submissions is expected to enhance the accuracy of this year’s data, as these submissions may reduce biases and errors associated with self-reported data.
Of the 627 total responses, 79 were removed, leaving 548 usable responses (533 from VCs and 15 from scouts). The reasons for removal included:
- Invalid positions (e.g., working at a startup, not a VC firm)
- Suspicious or errant compensation data
- Clearly erroneous responses
Additional exclusions:
- 15 Scout responses: Excluded due to the small sample size.
- There were 12 LPs who responded to the survey, 6 of whom provided salary information, those who did not provide salary info were removed from the survey, while the others were lumped together with Other VC firms in this report.
- 3 Intern responses: Omitted due to insufficient data.
- Small formatting errors and some $ entries were corrected (e.g., replacing “250,000,000” with “250m”), and qualitative data on Carry was normalized.
For overall survey calculations, all 533 remaining responses were included. However, for detailed calculations—such as segmenting by title, geography, and firm type—only U.S. data was used to ensure sufficient sample sizes for statistically meaningful results.
Descriptive statistics were used, as no formal sampling techniques were applied. The large variance and skewed distribution, especially when segmenting data, prevented achieving statistically significant results in many subsets. Averages and standard deviations were calculated individually for each data subset.
Other considerations:
- Responses were assigned based on the firm’s headquarters rather than the respondent’s self-reported location.
- Minimums and maximums were rounded to the nearest thousand to preserve confidentiality.
- As in 2023, the data is right-tail skewed (see graph below)
- That skewness isn’t too surprising. After all, most funds are smaller these days (because there’s been lots of growth in seed fund formation) and the GPs at those funds just don’t have a lot of cash to hand out to more junior roles.
- Subsets with fewer than three responses were excluded from charts and tables to maintain respondent anonymity, although that data is still used in aggregated calculations (e.g. Average Salary)
This data provides perspective on how compensation exists within the sampling frame but is not fully representative of the broader target population. Voluntary responses inherently include biases, as some respondents may choose not to share accurate information.
