Thelander IF Digest: February 2026

Carry Dollars at Work

In this month’s Digest, we are focusing on carry dollars at work versus carried interest “points.” While carried interest percentages tell you how much of the pool you own, carry dollars at work translates that piece of the pie into a potential dollar upside. 

What are carry dollars at work? Carry dollars at work are defined as the potential carry an individual might receive if their funds achieve a 2x gross multiple. Instead of saying “this Managing General Partner has X% carry,” carry dollars at work answers, “What would that X% be worth if the fund achieves a 2x gross multiple?”

In this sense, the amount shown in carry dollars at work is not a guarantee or measure of actual compensation received by an employee, but it does offer a standardized way to assess the relative value of different employees’ portions of the carry pool and translate them into dollar amounts that can be compared across fund sizes and AUM classes. 

For example, a Managing General Partner at a firm with $200 million AUM and one at a firm with $500 million AUM might have the exact same carry percentages for the fund that they are managing, but because of the different sizes of those funds these could translate into potential payouts on very different scales. With just the carry percentage you wouldn’t get a clear sense of this different, but if you knew the carry dollars at work figures for these two partners you would have a different perspective. 

With all that said, let’s dig into the Thelander carry dollars at work data across all active funds and see what it can tell us about how market conditions have been affecting the potential earnings of investment professionals at different sized firms over the past 3 years. 

Managing General Partner (MGP): Pressure at the Top

Key takeaways: 

Managing General Partner (MGPs) at larger firms ($1 billion+ AUM) have been hit the hardest by weak market conditions in terms of their carry dollars at work, decreasing at both the median and 75th percentile since 2023.

MGP carry dollars at work at firms with $500 – $999 million AUM have also declined YoY but with a smaller decrease at the 75th percentile, suggesting that MGPs at higher performing firms have been able to weather the changes better at that level.

At firms with less than $500 million AUM, carry dollars at work have stayed flat at the median and increased at the 75th percentile, perhaps because these firms tend to have less active funds at a time and therefore raise capital more infrequently. Longer fund cycles may actually contribute to these higher carry dollars at work figures for smaller firms because larger funds raised earlier may stay on the books for lengthier periods even if their realization prospects remain uncertain. 

Associates: Across-The-Board Compression

Associates are seeing a different pattern: carry dollars at work decreasing across all three AUM levels since 2023.

With these changes, the gap between associates at firms with less than $500 million AUM and those at firms with $500 – $999 AUM million has narrowed, but associates at firms with $1 billion+ still stand to make a good amount more than their peers at smaller firms. 

What’s The Bottom Line? 

Carried interest is the actual percentage while carry dollars at work is a forecast. Sometimes the forecast can be a bigger number, especially if your carried interest percentages are small. Regardless, making sure you understand the difference when it comes to either your own negotiations or setting up your firm’s compensation strategy and structure. 

To see how you and/or your team sits to market today, participate in the Thelander x PitchBook Investment Firm Compensation Survey and get 12 months of access to all the job titles you complete for no charge. 

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