VC Investments Slide Back To '97 Levels
"We all thought it was good then," said Steve Bengston at PricewaterhouseCoopers, who gave a presentation last night in Palo Alto. But an even bigger problem for VCs are exits -- later stage deals are getting larger (PWC recorded some Series O rounds), the IPO market is still weak, and prices on mergers and acquisitions are being hammered down. Fundraising is also way down: "If you can avoid raising money in 09, you should," he said. When VCs suffer, so do entrepreneurs -- Bengston said he sees "major triage" of portfolio companies by VCs, in a phenomenon he called "men behaving badly."
4 September 2009•2 mins read
