Venture Capital Compensation in Europe - Part 1
How much do European VCs make? 2024 Benchmark Analysis
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The venture capital industry in Europe offers a wide range of compensation packages, depending mainly on the role, geography and size of the fund. Based on the recent survey of over 350 respondents, together with EU.VC, we’ve gathered valuable insights into base salaries, bonuses, carry participation, and the gender composition of various VC roles.
This high-level analysis summarises the latest salary trends across 23 European countries—primarily from the UK, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands—providing a comprehensive look at the VC landscape.
Key results in compensation data
Carry is reported as a percentage of the total carry structure. For example, 0.2% represents 0.2 percentage points of the total carry (e.g. 20%).
The remuneration packages for Intern, Analyst, Associate, Principal, General Partner, and Head of Platform roles illustrate a clear trend of increasing rewards with seniority. Base salaries grow substantially from entry to senior levels, with major jumps observed between Associate to Principal and Principal to General Partner.
The box plot above provides a clear view of where most of our data points lie and captures the data's spread and variability. As shown, there are significant financial differences within the same job title, depending on factors such as firm size, location, and specific responsibilities.
Each box represents the middle 50% of the data, offering insight into how clustered or spread out these central data points are. The lower and upper edges of the box mark the 25th and 75th percentiles, indicating that 25% of data points fall below the lower edge and 25% above the upper edge.
The box plot shows a wider distribution of salary midpoints and more extreme outliers for senior roles, while entry-level roles have more consistent salary distributions.
The industry remains male-dominated, with women representing only about a third of respondents. This disparity widens at senior levels, where 80% of General Partners are male, leaving only 20% female.
Comparing the annual base salaries for male and female employees, there is virtually no overall difference, except in the roles of Interns and Heads of Platform, due to differences in years of experience. For example, the data shows that female Heads of Platform tend to be more experienced, typically closer to 40 years old, compared to the younger, 20-something age range of males in the same role.
Key Takeaways:
📈 Salary Growth: There’s a clear salary progression as professionals move up the ladder in venture capital, with substantial jumps in both base salary and carry from Associate to Principal and General Partner.
👥 Gender Disparity: The industry shows greater gender balance in junior roles but remains largely male-dominated at the senior level.
💰 Carry as a Key Incentive: Carry participation is a major driver of total compensation, especially at the senior levels.
What’s next
If you haven’t already filled out the survey, please do so to help us expand this analysis. It’s 100% anonymous and will help us provide deeper insights in future posts. We are already working on a breakdown of compensation by countries and including additional roles such as Head of finance, Venture Partner, and more.
Spotlight for the next post ➡️ The UK leads Europe in overall compensation for senior VC roles, offering the highest base salaries and bonuses. Which EU countries have the lowest compensation❓ And which one offers better carry packages❓
Stay tuned for the next post, where we’ll continue exploring these benchmark in greater detail!
That’s all folks👋 — thank you for taking a look! If you liked this post, don’t forget to follow me on LinkedIn & Subscribe for free below🔔
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Unless I'm missing something, this is interesting but useless as a guide to actually set remuneration without it filtered by AUM of the funds.
The biggest influence for most VC funds which are not large, is the constraint of their AUM. If you have stacked fees it's easy. If you're a 10, 20, 40, even 80m EUR fund @ 2%. You've got to be very very considered about what you pay the team and how big the team is. Fees are not plentiful.
This is great!