
Venture-capital fundraising plunges 35% in first quarter - mshafrir
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-venture-capital-20120409,0,5597095.story
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zitterbewegung
Isn't this a sign that there might not be a bubble?

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pagekalisedown
Could this be simply seasonal?

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asanwal
Not really seasonal, but the gyrations from quarter to quarter are less
interesting. That said, this has been a steady trend for some time as VCs who
last raised their funds in the early to mid 2000s but who didn't deliver
returns to their LPs (limited partners) are not able to raise more. Markets
working.

In addition, the VC asset class hasn't really done very well for LPs so the
community of investors wanting to get into VCs is not as gung ho as they've
been historically.

What we're seeing is that some VC funds are raising larger and larger funds
(these are the funds that have performed well and/or where sentiment/hype is
positive) and then there are a host of smaller micro-VC funds. The industry as
a whole is becoming more concentrated in the hands of fewer VCs.

It'll be interesting to see if the upcoming Facebook IPO and some other recent
positive outcomes as of late (Instagram for example) help to bring VC back to
prominence in the eyes of LPs.

