Venture capital firms are increasingly building out dedicated talent teams to help portfolio companies hire executives and scale their teams, a model long used by CVC Units. As these roles have become more strategic, compensation has followed. We dug into the Thelander YoY dataset (available through an investment firm subscription) to see what Talent Partners at VC firms with more than $1 Billion in total AUM are actually making.
Chart 1: Median Talent Partner YoY Compensation
- Median total cash has grown consistently from $350,000 in 2022 to $460,750 in 2026, a 31.6% increase over five years.
- Carried interest started at 0.500% in 2023, rose to 0.750% in 2024, and jumped to 2.000% by 2025, where it has held steady through 2026.
Chart 2: 75th Percentile Talent Partner YoY Compensation
- At the 75th percentile, total cash grew from $525,000 in 2022 to $772,600 in 2026, a 47.2% increase over five years.
- Carried interest rose from 1.000% in 2023 to 1.750% in 2024 before reaching 2.952% in 2025, where it has remained through 2026.
The Bottom Line: Compensation for talent teams is moving in one direction — up. Talent Partner compensation at large VC firms has grown significantly across both total cash and carried interest since 2022, a signal that firms are treating these roles as long-term strategic investments.
How does your compensation compare? Participate in the Thelander-PitchBook Investment Firm Compensation Survey and access real-time cash and carried interest data at no charge → survey.jthelander.com