Scientist Compensation at Private Companies: How Cash and Equity Shift by Funding Stage
Scientist compensation at private companies doesn’t just rise with each funding round—the balance between cash and equity can flip as companies grow. As private companies raise more capital, the mix shifts: cash is more available and equity is more of a commodity. Using real-time data from the Thelander Comp Planning Tool, here’s how scientist total […]
How Private Tech CEO Compensation Changes by Revenue
In this week’s PC data drop, we’re using data from the Thelander Platform looking at how median total cash, founder and non-founder equity compensation for CEOs of private tech companies shifts based on revenue. Generally speaking, the more revenue a company generates, the higher the CEOs median total cash compensation. As far as total founder […]
How Startup Executive Compensation Has Changed Since 2021
Using the Thelander YoY private company dataset, we looked to see which private company executives have seen the biggest movement in total cash since 2021. For startups with $50–$109.9M in total financing: In other words, CSOs have quietly seen some of the strongest total cash growth in this funding band—especially at the top end of the […]
Compensation Infrastructure for Startups: How Pay Plans Evolve as You Raise Capital
Building compensation infrastructure for startups is one of the most overlooked foundations of a growing company—but what does putting it in place really mean? It means building a clear job architecture and a structured salary framework. It also means moving away from ad-hoc decisions—whether driven by what an individual candidate asks for or by setting […]
Salary Structures 101
Salary Structures 101: How to Build a Compensation Infrastructure for Your Startup
What Startups Need to Know Re: Secondary Markets & Compensation
Thelander recently published the results from the Private Company Year-End Merit Increase, Option Pool & Bonus Report (available through a subscription to the Thelander Platform) – which featured new data on secondary markets given their prominence in today’s global private capital market. Here’s what startups need to know re: secondary markets and compensation. The results? 92% of private companies […]
What do CFOs at private companies make?
CFOs are invaluable at private companies (AKA startups) —often seen as the #2 alongside the CEO. At later‑stage private companies, the CFO isn’t just running finance; they’re co‑piloting the business and owning the path to liquidity (which is opening back up). So, what are these key players making? Using YoY data from the Thelander platform (available […]
Startup Compensation Trends: Five Straight Years of Total Cash Growth
Startup compensation trends continued their upward climb in 2025. This data drop analyzes total cash compensation trends across four key positions – CEOs, CSOs, Engineering Managers and Operation Managers – at startups that have raised between $50 and $109.9 million in total financing. Thelander data shows that total cash increased in 2025 for all four positions at […]
Diving into Private Company Salary Increases
Most private company roles saw higher raise rates in 2025, especially at the leadership level. See which positions got the biggest bumps with Thelander’s exclusive benchmark data.
Private Company Compensation by Gender: What the Data Shows for Executives and Staff
This month, we are digging into gender compensation data for executives and staff-level employees. According to the PitchBook – NVCA Q3 Venture Monitor Report, “80% of first-time financings go to all-male teams.” Thelander has been tracking gender compensation dat for the last 10 years. So, how does this impact compensation? The composition of the 9,734 total […]