Startup CEO Gender Pay Gap is Closing - Average Salary is $142,000

Using anonymized data from hundreds of leading startups, Kruze Consulting reveals what startup CEOs can expect to make in the Silicon Valley

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Kruze Consulting

Mar 18, 2020, 08:00 ET

SAN FRANCISCO, March 18, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Kruze Consulting, a leading CFO consulting company for startups, today released updated data on what the average salary is for startup CEOs in the Silicon Valley. Coming in $12,000 over last year's number, startup CEOs can expect to earn an average of $142,000 annually. The analysis comes from a dataset comprising more than 200 venture-funded startups and represents more than $2BN in funding. Startups in the study represent several industries, including Biotech, eCommerce, FinTech, Hardware, SaaS and more. The survey also revealed a closing pay gap between male and female CEOs in early stage startups. The complete report can be found on Kruze Consulting's blog .

"When advising founders, my team and I are often asked what amount of compensation CEOs should be paid," said Vanessa Kruze, Founder and CEO of Kruze Consulting. "This year's data indicates that startup CEOs are making around 10% more than last year, which is to be expected since funding rounds have increased in size year over year as well. Perhaps most importantly though is the vanishing pay gap at earlier stage companies. If women are able to raise a comparable amount of venture funding, they draw similar salaries as men. We hope this data empowers female founders to pay themselves suitably as they grow their businesses."

Kruze noticed that the growth in startup CEO salary seems to be coming predominantly from hardware and SaaS companies, which have seen massive growth in seed round sizes this year. In 2018, CEOs of hardware startups averaged a $118,000 salary and SaaS CEOs came in at $113,000. In 2019, salaries for hardware CEOs went up to $135,000 and SaaS to $121,000, representing 14% and 7% increases respectively. This is likely due to comparable companies in those spaces raising larger funding rounds in 2019 versus 2018. Biotech and Fintech startup CEO salaries remained relatively unchanged year over year, coming in at $147,000 and $129,000 respectively, while CEOs of eCommerce startups saw a nearly 4% decrease in average salary.

Similarly to last year's study, funding size plays an important role in startup CEO salaries. Startups with light funding of less than $2 million only noticed a $5,000 per year increase in the average salary, while companies that have raised between $2 million and $5 million noticed an almost 8% increase. The largest growth came from companies with between $5-10 million in funding, jumping 12% from $145,000 in 2018 to $162,000 in 2019. Startups with $10 million or more in funding noticed an average gain of 8%, jumping from $160,000 in 2018 to $173,000 in 2019.

Additionally, the average female startup CEO salary is $138,000 - $5,000 less than their male counterparts. If we control for the stage of companies in the sample, the salaries even out. Since the female CEOs in our dataset were predominately running seed and Series A funded companies, when male and female CEO pay is compared at companies with seed and Series A funding their pay is comparable. The $5,000 difference is largely because there are fewer female CEOs in our dataset at later stage startups where the average salary tends to be higher.

About Kruze Consulting
Kruze provides Startup CFO Consulting to over 200+ startups in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, New York, and other major startup hubs. To date, Kruze's clients have raised over $3.5 billion in venture capital and are market leading SaaS, software, eCommerce, eHealth and FinTech startups. Founded in 2012 by Vanessa Kruze, a big four alum, startup controller and CPA, the firm handles all things accounting, tax, finance, & HR. Everything from interim CFO Consulting, financial modeling, startup tax returns, venture debt consulting, 409A valuations, bookkeeping, AR/AP, and Seed/Series A/B Fundraising Preparation can be seamlessly handled by the professionals at Kruze. Visit https://kruzeconsulting.com/ to learn more.

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SOURCE Kruze Consulting