Hi friends,

We think you’ll agree that the people you build with matter more than almost anything else.

They affect how fast you move, how good the decisions are, what the culture feels like and how big the team is willing to think. And over time, they decide how far a company or a fund can really go.

Pay is only one part of that, of course. But it often tells you a lot. It shows what you value, what you are ready to fight for and whether the team you have today is the team you need for what comes next.

So this week, we’re looking at compensation through two lenses.

ZEREN’s 2026 Remuneration Report shows what VC and PE-backed technology companies are paying across key roles, and where senior hiring is getting harder. Our benchmark with Learning VC looks inside European venture itself, based on 233 professionals across 24 countries, covering salaries, bonuses and carry.

The lesson is not that everyone needs to pay more.

It is that founders and fund managers need to know where to compete, where they can say no and where the way they pay today may already be making it harder to attract or keep the people they need.

For investors, that means thinking about pay as part of firm design. For founders, it means taking a fresh look at founder pay, senior hiring, AI-era roles, equity clarity and the benefits that help people stay.

Below, we’ve pulled together the benchmarks, the main questions to ask and the resources to use next, plus more recent EUVC content and upcoming rooms worth joining.

Hope you find this edition useful.

with 💖
David & Andreas

Pay is not just an HR topic inside a fund. It affects who stays, who grows, who gets carry and what kind of firm you are building.

Ask:

Resources to use:

Pay is one of the first places to check whether your company is ready for the next stage.

Ask:

Resources to use:

Flease, a Lyon-based company offering flexible leasing for nearly new and reconditioned enterprise vehicles, has raised €13 million from Partech Impact to expand across France.

Its model combines contracts from 1 to 50 months with a telematics-driven fleet management platform, giving companies more visibility on usage, consumption, service cycles and total cost of ownership.

The round comes as businesses rethink mobility around electrification, flexibility and sustainability, with Flease positioning itself as a more agile and circular alternative to traditional fleet leasing.

A quick update on what’s coming together for Love Tomorrow Summit on July 23.

The Rose Garden Stage is taking shape: 90 minutes featuring leading investors and innovators working at the intersection of capital and impact, including:

Short talks. Honest conversations. No panels, no filler.

On July 24, The Impact Circle's Investor Lounge continues: intimate firesides between impact fund managers, climate LPs, and corporate venture leads.

If you want to be in either room, this is worth your attention.

Cynthia Hansen, Managing Director of the Innovation Foundation, empowered by the Adecco Group, shares four lessons from building employment solutions that scale, from designing around trends instead of demographics to making technology and venture thinking central to long-term impact.

Highlights

Neil Shah, Director, Tech Sector Specialist at London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), joins Dan Bowyer and Mads Jensen of SuperSeed to discuss why pension reform, public markets and capital allocation could shape the future of UK technology, alongside the latest trends in AI infrastructure, defence and sovereign AI.

Highlights

AI is reshaping how product, engineering, data and design teams are structured, hired and led.

This session is for C-suite, SVP, VP and director-level leaders across those functions, alongside founders and leaders responsible for hiring within VC and PE-backed companies. Presented by Renovata Events in partnership with Encord.