M&A for VC-backed deals lowest since 1999

Venture capitalists and companies they fund aren't out of the woods yet

The venture capital industry isn't out of the woods yet. The second quarter was one of the worst three-month periods for venture investing since early 2003, according to a just-released report by Dow Jones VentureSource.

Venture-backed liquidity fell 57% to from $6.48 billion to $2.8 billion, the lowest level since 1999. 

Driving that number lower was both the number of deals and the valuations. Both were down sharply.

Mergers and acquisitions accounted for the bulk of that liquidity, with 67 venture-backed companies bought for a total of $2.57 billion worth of deals done. This is down 60% from the $6.48 billion raised via 89 M&A exits in the same period last year.

The two largest acquisitions came from Cisco Systems, which bought digital camcorder maker Pure Digital for $590 million, and Tidal Software, a maker of workload management software, for $105 million. 

The median price paid was just shy of $22 million vs. $41 million a year ago. 

Meanwhile, IPOs came back to life. Three VC-backed companies made debuts in May and June, raising $232 million. The past 13 months only saw one VC-backed deal. And, that was in August 2008. The biggest IPO deal was SolarWinds, which raised $113 million.

Companies are also not raising as much. The median amount raised was $16.3 million in the second quarter, down 30% from $23.4 million in the same period a year ago.

An interesting development is that for the second-straight month, the time it took to get to liquidity fell. 

The median amount of time it took to reach liquidity was 4.5 years, down from six years in the year-ago period.