A recent report suggests that the salaries of startup CEOs declined on average while early-stage CEOs saw modest pay increases and Series B CEOs endured a 10% pay cut. The pay gap between female and male CEOs remains persistent at $14,000, but expanded on a percentage basis due to the decline in average salaries.

The study is conducted by Kruze Consulting, the startup accounting and CFO consulting firm servicing more than 800 venture funded startup clients. The report, based on anonymized payroll data, is the longest running and largest startup CEO salary report in the world. 

“The CEO salary data collected this year reflects some resilience in the early-stage startup ecosystem and turmoil in the later stage market. Seed and Series A startups saw solid pay moves whereas Series B CEOs’ salaries came down on average. While the volume of funding rounds was lower, the quality of companies that raised Seed and Series A rounds were strong, and their CEOs were able to command better pay compared to the prior year,” said Healy Jones, Vice President at Kruze Consulting.

He emphasized that the gender pay gap is concerning, because it hasn’t recovered to 2019 levels since the massive discrepancy that opened up during the pandemic.

In 2019, the gender pay gap was $5,000 then expanded to $45,000 during the pandemic. Since 2020, it’s recovered somewhat but has remained at $14,000, around 10%, for the past two years. 

Since professional startup investors are typically involved in executive pay decisions, this is a place where VCs have an opportunity to affect change. We’ve conducted this study annually since 2018 in order to equip Founders and investors with the data they need to make informed decisions when approaching executive compensation.

Key findings include:

• The average startup CEO salary was $142,000 in 2023 and slightly declined to $141,000 in 2024. 

• For CEOs of Series B startups, the average salary declined almost 10% from $251,000 last year to $227,000 in 2024. 

• Series A CEOs saw a 6.5% increase in salaries, up from $168,000 in 2023 to $179,000 in 2024. 

• Seed stage CEO pay averages increased 2.3%, from $129,000 in 2023 to $132,000 in 2024. 

Only the best startups were able to raise Seed and Series A rounds recently, driving the increase in CEO pay. The past 2 years have been very difficult for Series B and beyond companies to fundraise, so those executives are responding by keeping executive compensation lower to preserve capital.

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Figure, an AI robotics company developing general purpose humanoid robots, today announced that it has raised $675M in Series B funding at a $2.6B valuation with investments from Microsoft, OpenAI Startup Fund, NVIDIA, Jeff Bezos (through Bezos Expeditions), Parkway Venture Capital, Intel Capital, Align Ventures, and ARK Invest. This investment will accelerate Figure’s timeline for humanoid commercial deployment.

What is even more interesting is its collaboration with OpenAI in conjunction with this investment. Figure and OpenAI will work together to develop next generation AI models for humanoid robots, combining OpenAI’s research with Figure’s deep understanding of robotics hardware and software. The collaboration aims to help accelerate Figure’s commercial timeline by enhancing the capabilities of humanoid robots to process and reason from language.

“We’ve always planned to come back to robotics and we see a path with Figure to explore what humanoid robots can achieve when powered by highly capable multimodal models. We’re blown away by Figure’s progress to date and we look forward to working together to open up new possibilities for how robots can help in everyday life,” said Peter Welinder, VP of Product and Partnerships at OpenAI.

The Figure team, made up of top AI robotics experts from Boston Dynamics, Tesla, Google DeepMind, and Archer Aviation, has made remarkable progress in the past few months in the key areas of AI, robot development, robot testing, and commercialization (Figure recently announced its first commercial agreement with BMW Manufacturing to bring humanoids into automotive production). This new capital will be used strategically for scaling up AI training, robot manufacturing, expanding engineering headcount, and advancing commercial deployment efforts.

Figure will also leverage Microsoft Azure for AI infrastructure, training, and storage. 

“Our vision at Figure is to bring humanoid robots into commercial operations as soon as possible. This investment, combined with our partnership with OpenAI and Microsoft, ensures that we are well-prepared to bring embodied AI into the world to make a transformative impact on humanity,” said Brett Adcock, Founder and CEO of Figure. “AI and robotics are the future, and I am grateful to have the support of investors and partners who believe in being at the forefront.”

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ElevenLabs, a voice technology research company, has raised an $80m Series B round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, and joined by Sequoia Capital, SV Angel, Smash Capital, BroadLight Capital and Credo Ventures. 

Bloomerg reported that the new financing gives the company a $1.1 billion valuation helping it secure a unicorn status. 

Since its public launch, ElevenLabs has been enabling users to create and design AI voices in several languages and accents, with the ability to deliver a wide range of emotions and intonations. ElevenLabs’ users have generated over 100 years of audio, while the firm grew from 5 to 40 employees. The company’s technology is reportedly being used by employees at 41% of Fortune 500 companies. 

ElevenLabs was co-founded in 2022 by Piotr Dabkowski, an ex-Google machine learning engineer, and Staniszewski. 

The new funding will be used to further refine the company’s product offering whilst ensuring the safe deployment of AI technology, the company stated. 

Piotr Dąbkowski, CTO of ElevenLabs, said “Our team’s dedication has already made a lasting impact on voice AI. This new funding enables us to take on even bigger challenges and focus on maintaining our competitive edge in research and product development.”

ElevenLabs also unveiled some new product developments, which will go live over the coming weeks. These include a Dubbing Studio, a Voice Library market place to help users monetize AI versions of their own voices and a Mobile App reader that enables instant conversion of text and URLs into audio . 

Last year, the company had expanded its presence in multiple sectors, including publishing, gaming, media, and conversational verticals, as well as forging B2B partnerships with major media houses.

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