The latest NVCA Numbers on fundraising of VC Funds are here, and essentially it is falling of a cliff. In Q3 of 2009 only 17 funds raised capital. While this will probably go up to 18 or 19 (initial numbers by the NVCA usually are corrected upwards in their later reports) this is still abysmal.
Based on the back-of-the-envelope math in my previous post this rate of fundraising would mean venture captial would shrink to a little over 200 firms or a quarter of its current size. While possible, that seems pessimistic. From what I hear from people in the VC industry, there is at least some evidence that investors are still interested in VC as an asset class and investments will increase as the liquidity of long-term investors gets better. I think there is a chance that this is the low point of the fund raising activities for this downturn.