Weeks? Jesus, do things really move that much faster in the valley? Even the hot startups in our area (Waterloo, Ontario) take months at minimum to raise a round. Probably the biggest factor is just that there aren't all that many active investors.
We were highly organized about how we approached VCs and we had prepared well before the first meeting, but ultimately it came down to one partner at USVP clicking with the idea and running with it. They called us back for a second meeting and gave us a term sheet.
Generally it takes at least two months.
A lot of the guys attending Hackers and Founders aren't quite so luck. If you're starting from scratch and going from two guys in a garage, through, getting introductions and meetings with individual angels, and raising a round that way, I it tends to take a lot longer than a couple of weeks. That is, if you are able to raise money at all.
At least that's my birds eye view from the guys attending Hackers and Founders.
Granted we're doing pretty well, but my god has it been brutal. And not the good kind of brutal - as in building the product and finding customers - the bad kind of brutal, where you lose good developers because no one wants to live in friggin' Waterloo, and there's maybe 10 active investors in the whole damn city (and we already have 3 of them!)