LinkedIn outreach benchmarks for venture capital & private equity (2026)

Key Takeaways

In the venture capital and private equity space, the average LinkedIn connection acceptance rate is 34.9%. Replies to the connection note an average of 5.5%, and replies to a message after the connection is accepted on average 11.0% of the time. Those numbers come from 135,376 connection requests sent by 107 venture capital and private equity accounts using Expandi between May 2025 and April 2026. All three run above the cross-industry averages of 28.5%, 3.0% and 10.4%.

Venture Capital & Private Equity vs. the platform average

Metric	Venture Capital & Private Equity	All industries	Difference	Rank
Connection acceptance	34.9%	28.5%	+6.4 pts	2nd of 38
Connection-note reply	5.5%	3.0%	+2.5 pts	2nd of 38
Message reply after acceptance	11.0%	10.4%	+0.6 pts	16th of 38

Across the 38 industries with at least 50 sending accounts, acceptance runs from 21.8% (telecommunications) to 36.5% (staffing & recruiting). Note replies run from 1.8% to 6.6%, and message replies from 7.2% to 18.9%.

What the numbers say about investor outreach

Investors rank second of the 38 industries we assessed on both acceptance (34.9%) and note-reply rate (5.5%), trailing only staffing and recruiting. Both numbers sit well clear of the platform averages of 28.5% and 3.0%.

Message replies tell a different story. At 11.0%, venture capital and private equity ranks just 16th of 38 — only slightly above the 10.4% average, and far off its own front-end performance. Staffing, by contrast, converts at 18.9% on this measure. Two sectors that open almost identically diverge sharply once the conversation starts, a gap worth about 3.1 percentage points of end-to-end conversion.

Across the 107 accounts and 135,376 requests in the sample, venture capital and private equity converts at roughly 3.8 replies per 100 recipients — third best among the twenty largest samples.

The takeaway: access isn’t the problem here. Investors will connect, and they’ll answer a note. It’s what happens next where the sector turns ordinary.

If your numbers sit below these

The dataset shows where an account stands, not why. From what we see across campaigns, three gaps come up most often in this sector, and each points to a different problem.

Message replies under 11.0%. Despite ranking 2nd of 38 on both front-end measures, the sector falls to 16th here. This is the gap that separates venture and private equity from staffing, and the one with the most room for improvement.

Note replies under 5.5%. The sector ranks 2nd of 38, so the bar is high — investors answer notes at nearly double the platform rate. Falling below this line means a usually receptive audience isn’t responding to your messaging.

Acceptance under 34.9%. Also 2nd of 38. A shortfall here is a strong signal, and in this sector it usually means the list has reached past the funds and people who actually accept unsolicited contact.

Further reading:

• Improving your LinkedIn Sales Navigator targeting
• Personalising the message request without tripping limits
• The LinkedIn message follow-up formula

Frequently asked questions

What is a good LinkedIn acceptance rate when contacting investors?

34.9% is the average for venture capital and private equity — 6.4 points above the 28.5% cross-industry figure, and second of 38 reported industries. Investors accept at nearly the highest rate in the dataset, so 35% is par rather than good.

Do VCs reply to LinkedIn connection notes?

More than almost anyone. Venture capital and private equity averages 5.5% note replies against a platform average of 3.0% — second of 38 reported industries, behind only staffing and recruiting.

How does venture capital compare with staffing and recruiting?

They open almost identically and finish very differently. Venture capital and private equity averages 34.9% acceptance and 5.5% note replies against staffing’s 36.5% and 6.6%. But staffing converts accepted connections into message replies at 18.9%, while venture manages only 11.0% — a gap worth about 3.1 points of end-to-end conversion.

How this data was collected

Figures for venture capital and private equity are drawn from 107 accounts and 135,376 connection requests sent between May 2025 and April 2026, part of Expandi’s LinkedIn Outreach Benchmarks 2026 dataset of 13.2 million requests across 13,302 accounts. That report carries the full methodology, plus breakdowns by sender seniority, company size, and month that aren’t repeated here.

Two things to keep in mind when reading these figures:

• First, the industry is the sender’s, taken from their company profile, not the recipient’s.
• Second, only industries with at least 50 sending accounts are reported at all; below that threshold, a single unusual account can move the average by several points, which is why some of the most extreme numbers in the full report aren’t published here.

Related industry benchmarks

• Human Resources, 30.5% acceptance and 9.7% message replies
• Design, 31.3% acceptance and 10.5% message replies
• Professional Training & Coaching, 27.4% acceptance and 8.6% message replies
• All industry benchmarks

Grade your own LinkedIn outreach against these numbers

Enter your own acceptance and reply rates and grade your outreach against the venture capital and private equity benchmark, plus see where you sit among all 38 reported industries. No signup required.

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Data updated 19 August 2026. Refreshed quarterly against the source report.