Carried Interest Calculator

About this calculator

Carried interest follows the private-equity and venture-capital "waterfall" structure: limited partners first get their capital back, then a preferred return (hurdle rate) — commonly 8% annually — before the general partner earns anything. Above that hurdle, the fund manager's carry (typically 20%) applies to the remaining profit, with investors keeping the rest, so a manager only shares in the upside once the fund has cleared its hurdle for LPs.

Private equity and venture capital fund managers (GPs) use this to model how much carry a given fund performance would generate, and limited partners and institutional investors use the same math to check that a fund's economics — hurdle, catch-up, and carry split — are structured the way the fund's terms describe before committing capital.