Last updated on February, 2025
Unlock key insights into compensation trends across African Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Other Investment Roles.
The African investment ecosystem thrives on collaboration and trust - both of which depend on transparency. This report addresses a critical gap by shedding light on compensation trends and empowering professionals and employers to make informed decisions.
For Dream VC alumni and participants, it provides key benchmarks as they enter or advance in the investment space. For the A&A Collective, it serves as a foundation for deeper discussions on fair and competitive compensation. For other readers, it offers a reliable data point for future reference.
By presenting clear insights without overcomplicating or forcing conclusions, this report enables readers to interpret the data through their own lens of fairness and benchmarks. Future editions will expand coverage and provide deeper insights.
This report presents the findings of "The Compensation Map - An African Investment Salaries Report 2025", a collaborative research initiative led by Dream VC and theA&A Collective. The project was spearheaded by a dedicated research team at Dream VC, under Mark Kleyner andDevika Bade, featuringIjeoma Ejimadu,Johnson Adebisi Chinedu, andHaroun Yasser Sangaré, in collaboration with the A&A Collective Leadership, represented byFrances Tyner,Yvonne Okafor, andAraba Andoh.
The survey was inspired by the lack of existing data or research on compensation standards, best practices, salary ranges, and variations among African investment funds. Recognizing the gap, the research team sought to create a benchmarking study that could support salary transparency and help fund managers understand industry norms for compensation. To identify key areas of focus, the team reviewed over 20 existing compensation studies from around the world, including VC Platform Compensation Studies, JGB Compensation Studies, and other relevant reports to understand global trends and practices.
The research process was also sparked by the initiative of Dream VC alumna and A&A Collective member, Ijeoma Ejimadu, who began these important conversations in 2022. As a fellow of Dream VC, Ijeoma first profiled 52 VC salaries in a prior study titled"Africa’s Venture Capital Salary Insights", which she completed as a capstone research piece. Her efforts helped lay the groundwork for this study and sparked further exploration into compensation practices across the African investment landscape.
The goal of the study was to collect and analyze detailed compensation data for pre-partner level professionals working in African-focused investment and investment support roles. Participants were primarily drawn from Dream VC’s alumni fellow network, mentor groups, and broader community, while A&A Collective engaged its internal and external members and their respective networks. Together, these networks reached over 300 active investment professionals directly, 1,300 individuals through LinkedIn cold outreach and actively promoted the survey across more than 12 external WhatsApp groups and 8 Slack communities.
To ensure broad representation, the survey categorized participants by firm type (e.g., Venture Capital, Private Equity, Impact Investing, etc.) and by their roles within the firm (e.g., investment-facing, non-investment-facing, or both). In terms of participant roles, 73% were involved in investment-facing roles, 23% were in non-investment-facing roles, and the remaining participants were involved in both investment and non-investment-facing roles. The survey was designed to gather information from individuals working in firms that are African-focused or largely exposed to Africa, including fund managers, analysts, associates, and more. The survey consisted of required questions to prevent missing data and was structured to collect comprehensive compensation data, including salaries (excluding bonuses), carry, and other workplace benefits.
The data collection took place between Week 1 of September and Week 2 of December, providing participants ample time across 101 days to complete the survey. A few entries were received late, from individuals who wrote in saying they had partially completed the survey and wanted to finish it up until 18th December. As an incentive, participants were entered into a prize draw to win a $200 prize from Dream VC, or a 1-year membershipto A&A Collective, ensuring increased participation while maintaining impartiality.
To protect participant privacy while ensuring completeness of the dataset, all identifying information such as names and emails was anonymized before analysis, and only duplicate entries were excluded. After cleaning the data, a total of 216 responses were initially collected, with 7 entries removed due to incomplete or incorrect information.
The outcome of this study is an important contribution to salary transparency in the African investment ecosystem. The results will be shared publicly through an accessible website and publication, offering valuable insights to fund managers, HR professionals, and industry stakeholders. This study is intended to be annual, with the goal of improving industry standards and supporting salary negotiations and talent retention in Africa’s growing investment sector.
Special thanks to all the participants who provided their inputs for the survey and to the dozens of individuals who assisted in distributing the survey, helping to ensure the success of this project and to the DotENV Tech Solutions team for putting the dynamic website.
For any requests, concerns, or if you are interested in supporting the next edition of the study, please reach out to team@dream-vc.com oradmin@aacollective.co.
Dream VC is excited by the findings of the report and looks forward to assisting in the interpretation and implementation of new strategies for funds looking to leverage the data. With our comprehensive training offerings for fund teams and our remote annual programs supporting hundreds of individuals with breaking into venture capital, we are always eager to collaborate and support the professionalization of the African-focused investment landscape.
Contact myself on mark@dream-vc.com or drop our team a line anytime viateam@dream-vc.com to discuss how we can support your firm in training, upskilling or hiring in African markets.
Mark Kleyner
CO-CEO at Dream VC
At A&A Collective we believe that transparency is key to building a thriving and inclusive investment ecosystem in Africa. That’s why I’m excited about the findings of this compensation report—it provides emerging professionals with the insights they need to navigate their careers while helping firms foster more equitable and competitive teams. As a community driven by collaboration and knowledge sharing, we see this as a powerful tool to spark dialogue, share knowledge, and drive meaningful change within the African investment landscape, ultimately, improving livelihoods across the continent.
We’d love to partner with firms and ecosystem players to turn these insights into action—reach out to me at yvonne.okafor@aacollective.co, and my team atpartnerships@aacollective.co to explore ways we can work together.
Yvonne Okafor
Co-Founder at A&A Collective
Analyzing gender, age, education, and nationality distributions among survey participants to gain insights into the composition of the investment industry workforce.
The gender distribution of participants in the African investment and investment support ecosystem.
Representation of participants across different seniority levels in the dataset.
Breakdown of participants into 10 age categories, highlighting industry demographics.
Representation of participants by nationality, highlighting key trends and diversity.
Representation of participants by highest level of education achieved.
Representation of participants who have completed international education versus those who have not.
A comprehensive analysis of salary distribution, bonus structures, remote work trends, and workplace benefits across various roles and investment firm types.
The average annual salaries across roles, excluding bonuses and outlier values.
This horizontal bar chart represents salary statistics, including salary range, average salary, median salary, and bonus range for different roles.
This chart compares average salaries with vertical arrows showing the difference between regions.
This chart shows the carry ranges (min and max values) for various roles in the dataset.
This chart displays the salary progression across roles specifically in venture capital funds, excluding stipend-only and unpaid roles.
This chart displays different remote work policies adopted by firms in the dataset.
This pie chart illustrates the distribution of salary currencies among participants.
This chart displays the most commonly provided workplace benefits among participants.
Examining firm founding years, geographic headquarters, investment firm types, and AUM across different fund categories.
An analysis of firm founding trends, highlighting top years.
Highlighting the range, average, and most common AUM values reported by survey participants.
Most Common AUM Range in Dataset
$0.1M to $1000.0M
Minimum to Maximum AUM
$0.1M to $5000.0M
Average AUM across Dataset
$208.7M
Most Common AUM (Mode)
$50.0M
This visualization shows firm headquarters at both city and country levels, with a map and ranking chart.
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Highlighting the range, average, and most common AUM values reported by VC firms in the dataset.
Highlighting the range, average, and most common AUM values reported by Private Equity firms in the dataset.
Highlighting the range, average, and most common AUM values reported by Impact Investment firms in the dataset.
A comparison of AUM ranges across different investment categories.
This chart displays AUM distribution with crossRot markers for all statistical points. The x-axis uses a non-linear scale that zooms in on the 0-500M range, which takes up 50% of the chart width.
The shaded regions show only the interquartile ranges (25th-75th percentile) for each investment type. The dashed horizontal lines represent the full AUM range per category.
Private Equity (PE) funds have a higher median AUM, while Impact Investment funds typically show a narrower interquartile range.
This map shows the distribution of participants across major African investment hubs.
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This map shows the distribution of participants across the top 10 countries.
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A summary of the most significant findings from the dataset, highlighting trends in demographics, compensation structures, firm characteristics, and industry-wide observations.
Carry is rare in junior roles such as Analysts and Junior Associates but becomes more common in senior roles like Principals, Portfolio/Investment Managers, and Directors. However, even in senior roles, the average carry remains low, reflecting the fact that many senior professionals do not receive carry or receive very small amounts.
Analysts earn an average of $21,054, while Associates earn $25,816, and Senior Associates earn $45,947. The salary progression between these roles shows an increase in responsibility and expertise, with Senior Associates earning nearly double the salary of Analysts. This reflects the transition from research and deal support to more involved roles in deal-making, portfolio management, and leadership.
The progression from Senior Associate to Principal or Portfolio Manager shows a significant salary jump. Senior Associates earn an average of $45,947, while Principals and Portfolio Managers earn averages of $70,131.11 and $68,829 respectively. This increase highlights the step up in deal leadership, investment strategy, and portfolio oversight.
While the participants in the data may not be an absolute representation of the industry, due to the higher than average level of gender parity among the communities of Dream VC and A&A, who formed a portion of the participants, the gender split in the dataset shows 43% female representation, which is encouraging, especially given the study 's focus on junior roles in the investment sector. Men make up 56.94% of the dataset, but the 43% female representation is a positive sign of growing gender diversity compared to historic norms, though more work is needed, especially in senior roles.
The gender pay gap is slightly noticeable at senior levels, where males earn a bit more than females on average. However, the disparity is not huge, and the gender pay gap is less significant at junior levels, where pay is more equitable.
Although women represent 43% of the overall dataset, their representation at senior levels like Principals and Directors is still lower. This suggests that, while the industry is making strides in gender inclusivity, there is still room to enhance gender diversity at the leadership level.
The most common workplace benefits include Health/Dental Insurance (51.67%), Paid Vacation Time (PTO) (49.76%), and Professional Training Stipends (for some roles). These benefits reflect global standards for employee well-being, offering essential health coverage and work-life balance benefits and give some indication of the normalization of health coverage, paid time off and professional development budgets among investment firms.
The majority of participants hold a Bachelor 's degree or higher. Specifically, 40% of respondents have at least a Master 's degree, and 20% have MBAs. This indicates that higher education is highly valued in the African investment space, especially at senior levels, where advanced degrees are common among Principals, Directors, and Portfolio Managers.
Even with the mostly junior to mid-senior focus of the survey, 39.23% of participants in the study have completed some form of international education, reflecting the increasing globalization of Africa 's investment ecosystem. This also suggests that postgraduate education abroad is a common path for investment professionals looking to develop their careers. It 's important to note that foreign education from schools and universities in Europe and America often has a high-quality perception, which may explain the prevalence of international postgraduate education as individuals at certain career stages pursue advanced studies abroad.
Dream VC is a leading venture capital (VC) institute and corporate venture capital (CVC) practice dedicated to empowering the next generation of investors and innovators in emerging markets like Africa. Through comprehensive educational training programs, firm-specific upskilling, and strategic advisory engagements, Dream VC enables individuals to break into the investment industry, advance their expertise, and establish new investment initiatives.
The A&A Collective is a global community founded by and for emerging talent investing in the African continent. The Collective provides a space for young professionals to connect, collaborate and learn from each other through the community’s private platform as well as through virtual and in-person networking and educational events. For more information, or to join, please visit aacollective.co.