Newsletter – PC Edition

It’s commencement season, which means many college graduates will soon be on the hunt for their first career jobs – with many looking to the private capital markets to jumpstart their careers. This could prove challenging in this economy, where landing a well-paid job is extremely competitive, coupled with fewer entry-level job openings. However, for companies competing for talent, it’s important to know how much money you can potentially pay for a particular role and what levers you have to negotiate in extending an offer. For most startups, this includes equity, which is a percentage of a company’s shares, not a

One of the most frequently asked questions we get from our survey participants and clients is about how to compensate non-investor/independent board members. Non-investor board members contribute to private company boards because they typically have industry knowledge and valuable contacts that can help the company succeed. By appointing an independent member, the board can also expand past founders and investors, and have a neutral party to help make decisions on behalf of the company.  So, how do non-investor board members get compensated?  The four potential levers are: The majority of private companies compensate their non-investor board members with one-time equity

Welcome back to the Thelander Digest. Since March is Women’s History Month, we dug into our private company dataset to look at how the representation of female C-Suite executives at private companies has changed YoY and what progress has been made in closing the gender pay gap between men and women at the highest levels. Here’s what we found: At the median, female CEOs, CFOs, CTOs and Chief Scientific Officers, earn the same total cash or more as their male counterparts, representing significant jumps from 2020.  When looking at founder and non-founder CEOs of companies with less than $15 Million in total financing, female CEOs

In September 2022, Fortune used Thelander data to look at CEO compensation by financing and valuation. With the challenging fundraising environment, private companies staying private longer and shifting valuations, we wanted to see how the data has changed. Chart 1 looks at CEO median total cash year-over-year by total financing. Our data shows: Chart 2 looks at CEO median total cash year-over-year by valuation.  Compensation by valuation tends to fluctuate more than the total amount of financing.  The pattern for median total cash by valuation is similar to total amount of financing. Since 2020, the median total cash has generally increased, with the exception of the $90 – $199.9 million category in 2023 compared

In March 2023, we looked at the gender pay gap for life science CEOs. Almost a year later, we are sharing new data from the Thelander Private Compensation dataset, which looks at the number of female CEOs in life sciences and investigates how the gender pay gap is panning out for privately held life science companies in 2024. First, let’s take a look at CEO compensation by gender for life science companies with financing below $50 Million and then see how it compares to 2022.  According to our data:  How does this compare to 2023?Total cash has increased across the 25th, median, and

Welcome back to the first Private Company Digest of 2024. Following a successful week at the J.P.Morgan Healthcare Conference, we hosted a women’s event at Tiffany & Co honoring more than 300 women executives and investment professionals. You can find pictures here. This month we are diving deeper into the results from the Salary Increase & Bonus Survey, which covered merit increases, option pool, and bonuses for privately held companies. The full results are available through a private company subscription to the Thelander online platform. Already a subscriber? Download the full report here. Last month, we took a look at how CEO salary increase percentages were impacted

In this month’s Thelander Digest, we are excited to give you a peak at some of our findings from the Thelander 2023 Year-End Merit Increase, Option Pool & Bonus Survey. With more than 350 participating companies, the survey was a huge success. We explore how CEO salary increases at private companies are impacted by the total amount of financing raised to date. We use total amount of financing instead of most recent series raised, headcount, or valuation since it is the most precise way to look at compensation. Let’s dive into the data! Chart 1 looks at if CEOs received a salary increase for 2024

Welcome back to the Thelander Private Company Digest. We have a special November edition with a guest writer, Jonathan Norris, who is a Managing Director at HSBC Innovation Banking. In our newsletter, he clearly explains everything you wanted to know about venture debt financing. We’ll let him break it down for you!  1. What is venture debt? Venture debt is a debt instrument used to provide additional cash runway for venture-backed, cash-burning companies. The idea is that this debt will help extend the cash runway for a company to hit a key milestone to unlock the new equity fundraise. Venture-debt consists of an

Lately, women in the workforce have been regularly making headlines. We’ve seen topics such as the “number of women in the workforce tops pre-pandemic levels for the first time” and that “more mothers are working than ever before.”  Thus, for our October newsletter, we are taking a look at gender compensation data for CEOs. In the past, we’ve examined gender data for life science vs. tech CEOs. This time, we’ll look at how CEO compensation was impacted by gender and total amount of financing. Thelander has been tracking gender and ethnicity for executives for over five years, and we’ve used this exclusive data in our

A few years ago, we added new questions to the Thelander-PitchBook Investment Firm Compensation Survey to collect data on carry dollars at work. Using this data, we’ll be looking at insights on carry dollars at work and how it has changed since 2021. What is carry dollars at work? It’s defined as the amount of carry you will receive if your funds achieve a 2x gross multiple funds. Below, you’ll find three charts that show how carry dollars at work have changed year-over-year for investment professionals by total AUM. Let’s dive into the data!  Chart 1 shows the median carry dollars at work for firms with less than

For our August newsletter, we look at data from biotech companies to see how stage of development impacts compensation for its CEOs. The different stages of development can be categorized into five groups:1) Pre-Clinical 2) First in Man 3) FDA Clinical Trial Phase I 4) FDA Clinical Trial Phase II 5) Commercial Chart 1 shows the median for total cash, founder, and non-founder equity for CEOs by biotech stage of development. Thelander data shows:  Chart 2 shows the 75th percentile for total cash, founder, and non-founder equity for CEOs by biotech stage of development. We see the following: Chart 3 shows the median and 75th percentile for CEO total cash across all five

For our July newsletter, in the spirit of the Eurotrip returning for summer, we compared compensation for CEOs and Biologists in Europe and the United States. J.Thelander Consulting surveys globally and all data is reported in USD. Let’s take a look.  Our Findings: Thelander data clearly shows that the United States compensates higher for cash and equity for both positions across almost all percentiles.  Know someone that would find this data interesting?Invite them to subscribe to the Thelander Monthly Digest here.  Do you or your portfolio companies need private company compensation data? Thelander is the only firm to cover the entire private capital

In June’s Thelander Digest, we examine the different trends impacting compensation for research & development (R&D) positions.  To do this, we looked at our data on how the median total cash and non-founder shares (non-founder equity) has changed since 2019 for two positions: VP and Director of Research & Development (R&D). In order to keep things consistent, we looked at the compensation for companies that have raised between $15 to $89.9 million in total financing. So, what does Thelander data tell us? In the graph below, we find that compensation for VP of R&D has not been as consistent.  Our Findings: After analyzing the data presented above, we can

When examining compensation data for privately held companies – you want to make sure you are using an apple to apple comparison. Meaning? Private company instead of public.  Now that we’ve established a baseline – the next question is, what filters really make a difference? The Thelander platform allows you to easily customize private company data by five filters including: total amount of financing, region, revenue, and company valuation. Plus, the data is real-time and the tables are interactive.  In order to explain which filters truly make a difference in compensation, we break it down by examining data for a chief scientific officer. The two charts

In the March 2023 Thelander Digest, we examine how the total cash compensation for male and female CEOs at privately held life science companies with more than $50 Million in total financing has changed since 2020.  Stay tuned for the April 2023 Digest where we’ll look at the gender pay gap between tech CEOs!  Participate in the Thelander Private Company Compensation Survey Here for FREE Compensation Data What does the data show us?  The Thelander Digest is powered by real-time compensation data from the Thelander Private Company Compensation Survey There is NO COST to participate and all respondents will receive a complimentary silver subscription for the year. The survey covers

The Thelander Digest is powered by real-time compensation data from the Thelander Private Company Compensation Survey. There is no cost to participate and all respondents will receive free access to a subset of the results through a silver level subscription.  Participate in the Thelander Private Company Compensation Survey Here for FREE Compensation Data In the February Thelander Digest, we examined how compensation for four engineering jobs and finance positions has changed since 2018.  We looked at data for some of the most tried and true engineering jobs on the market and compared them with two staple finance positions. Here we provide a compensation

In this Thelander Digest, we look at hiring and compensation trends for 2023 using the results from the recently published Thelander Year-End Merit Increase, Option Pool & Bonus Report.  As our data shows in the graphs below, the percentage of salary increases for staff-level employees went up in every percentile from “for 2021” to “for 2022.” We also take a look at the factors that lead to salary increases for 2023. What trends are we seeing for 2023? The Thelander Private Company Compensation Survey is now open year-round with monthly updated on the online platform. All of the data presented in this newsletter