Thursday, January 15, 2009

WTIA: Venture Capital, Jobs Will Be Tough To Find

The Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) released the results of its quarterly venture capital outlook survey today, finding that availability of capital is predicted to be a big problem in coming months. The survey, which asks local VC firms about their opinions on various topics, found that 56 percent of respondents indicated "availability of capital" as the primary concern for the upcoming quarter. The survey also found that 54 percent of the venture capitalists surveyed predicted that their portfolio companies will be cutting more than 10 percent of their staff in Q1, with only 56 percent predicting no change in their workforce growth. Other bad news: none of the VCs predicted an increase in growth in valuations for startups; and two thirds of the venture capitalists expected revenue growth of their portfolio firms to be "moderately or substantially worse than Q4." Finally, top top off the bad news, the WTIA survey said that none of those surveyed expected an exit in Q1.