Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Venture Backed Liquidity At Six Year Low

Last quarter was not a good quarter for venture liquidity, Dow Jones VentureSource is reporting today. Dow Jones said that Q2 was a six year low for exits for venture-capital backed firms, with only $2.8 billion in liquidity events -- mergers and acquisitions or IPOs -- for companies who have received venture funding. The numbers are down 57% from last year. Dow Jones said there was $2.57 billion in mergers and acquisitions of 67 companies in Q2, down from $6.48B and 89 transactions in Q2 of 2008. The three venture-backed IPOs on the market raised $232M. In addition to the dismal totals, Dow Jones also said that how much companies are getting from sales is much lower, as well--the median amount paid for a venture-backed company in Q2 was almost $22M, down from $41M from Q2 of 2008.