The NVCA published its latest numbers on VC fundraising, and as expected they are not pretty. Only 40 new funds were raised for a total of $4.31 billion. Both numbers are just above half the rate at which firms were raising money before the current downturn hit.

While low, these number are actually better than I would have expected. The total amount raised is slightly higher than last quarter. Usually the NVCA numbers in the first press release are about 5-10% below the final numbers, thus one would expect this to look even better. However about 25% of the total funding amount is just from two funds (August and Bain), this might skew the numbers. And I would expect the downturn to continue.

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