Kruze Consulting, a leading CPA, tax and consulting firm to venture and seed backed startups, published a research report analyzing the salary of startup CEO’s salaries and found that the average CEO salary is $130,000 per year . This study looked at the salary of over 125 funded companies, and compared CEO salary based on the startup’s industry and the amount of funding raised.
“Since we are advisors to founders, and we help startups set up payroll and run their books, we are often asked what sort of compensation is typical,” said Vanessa Kruze, Kruze Consulting’s founder and CEO. “Our data shows that startup CEOs tend to make more money as their company raises larger amounts of venture capital, and that certain industries, such as Healthcare and Biotech, have higher paid CEOs.”
Roughly, for every additional $1,000,000 raised, a startup CEO will take home between $4,000 and $5,000 more in annual salary, according to the report. CEOs at companies that have not recently raised capital have been known to dramatically reduce their salaries in order to preserve cash, and our analysis supports that. Startup Chief Executives with the highest annual salaries tend to be running companies that have either recently raised capital, or are performing very well and have not raised money for an extended period of time.
The full startup CEO salary report is available on Kruze Consulting’s blog. The report shows average salaries for seed-funded startups in several industries, including Biotech, eCommerce, FinTech, Hardware, SaaS and more. Additionally, average CEO pay by the amount of funding raised is broken out, as is the typical salary increase CEOs take after a successful fund raise.
Kruze Consulting was founded in 2012 by Vanessa Kruze, a big four alum, startup controller and CPA. Kruze provides Startup CFO Consulting to over 170+ startups in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, New York, and other major startup hubs. Kruze’s clients have raised over $500 million in venture capital in the past 12 months, and are market leading Saas, software, eCommerce, eHealth and FinTech startups. The firm handles all things Accounting, Finance, & HR: interim CFO Consulting, financial modeling, startup tax returns, venture debt consulting, 409A valuations, bookkeeping, AR/AP, and Seed/Series A/B Fundraising Preparation. Visit https://kruzeconsulting.com/ to learn more.
