When Morgenthaler raised their last fund I wrote that it looks like Venture Capital is ready for a shake-out. If anything the Q4 numbers from the NVCA/Venture Economics confirm this trend. Below the graph for Venture Funds closed for each quarter over the past 3 years.
Only 43 venture funds where closed in Q4, and the total capital raised was $3.3 billion. This is down from 84 funds raising $11.6 billion a in Q4 of 2007. This brings venture fund raising back to the levels we saw right after the crash of 2000. I would expect to see a further decline for all of the next year in both number of funds as well as total capital. What this means for the venture industry is that if you have fully invested your old fund, and not yet raised a new fund (or at least had an initial closing), you may be in a very difficult situation. Howeve if you just raised a fund, you can expect less competition (and thus hopefully better returns) in the next few years.