Venture-capital fundraising plunges 35% in first quarter

Not really seasonal, but the gyrations from quarter to quarter are less interesting. That said, this has been a steady trend for some time as VCs who last raised their funds in the early to mid 2000s but who didn't deliver returns to their LPs (limited partners) are not able to raise more. Markets working.

In addition, the VC asset class hasn't really done very well for LPs so the community of investors wanting to get into VCs is not as gung ho as they've been historically.

What we're seeing is that some VC funds are raising larger and larger funds (these are the funds that have performed well and/or where sentiment/hype is positive) and then there are a host of smaller micro-VC funds. The industry as a whole is becoming more concentrated in the hands of fewer VCs.

It'll be interesting to see if the upcoming Facebook IPO and some other recent positive outcomes as of late (Instagram for example) help to bring VC back to prominence in the eyes of LPs.