EXCLUSIVE DATA: How much (or little) impact founders earn across Europe

New data from VC firm Creandum gives a glimpse into where in Europe climate tech founders are likely taking home the biggest pay packets, and highlights a stark difference between the region's startup hubs.

The report, which maps founder salaries across industries including climate tech, reveals that pay is heavily influenced by the stage of the company and whether it's self-funded or backed by external capital.

Creandum’s analysis is based on data from 688 founders, primarily in Europe, but lacks comprehensive figures for all stages of the journey within climate tech. To fill in the gaps, Impact Loop estimated salaries for missing phases by calculating the average growth in salaries where data is available and applying it to incomplete data sets.

The result? A complete overview of founder salaries in Europe’s climate tech niche.

So who’s bringing home the big bucks?

Entrepreneurs in the Benelux region who’ve raised a Series B round – a substantial funding stage later in the company’s journey– are at the top of the earning scale. They rake in an average yearly salary of €361,5K. For comparison, their Nordic counterparts earn significantly less, at €198,1K per year.

At the other end of the spectrum, self-funded founders or those at the pre-seed stage (the earliest funding round) see much more modest salaries. On average, the yearly salary is €55,8K for bootstrapped founders, and €58,3K for pree-seed.

Here are all the numbers:

Additional research by Maddy Savage.