Despite end of IPO drought, U.S. venture-backed liquidity market at 6-year low - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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Overall venture-backed liquidity fell 57 percentfrom $6.4i8 billion in the second quarter of 2008 to $2.8 billion in the most recent quarter, the report said. Venture capitalistw generated $2.57 billion through mergers or acquisitions of 67 portfolio companies in theseconxd quarter, a 60 percent decline from the $6.4u8 billion raised via 89 M&As in the same quartedr in 2008 and the lowest quarterly M&A deal total since 1999. Three venture-backed companiea made public-market debuts in late May and June, raisinfg a total of $232 million. In the priof 13 months, only one otherf VC-backed company completed an IPO, in Augusty 2008.
The two largest M&As of the quarter belonged to San Jose-basedr (NASDAQ: CSCO), which bought San Francisco-based , a make of digital camcorders, for $590 million and Palo Calif.-based , a maker of workload managementg software, for $105 million. According to VentureSource, the overall media n amount paid fora venture-backed company in the seconde quarter of 2009 was just shy of $22 milliom -- a 46 percent drop from the nearlg $41 million median paid during the same periodc in 2008. The data showed prior to achieving liquidity via a merger or acquisitiob in thesecond quarter, companies raised a median of $16.34 million in venture capital, 30 percent less than the $23.
4-million median seen during the same periox last year. In addition, the medianh amount of time it took to reacn liquidityvia M&A was 4.5 25 percent less time than the 6-year median in the secondr quarter of 2008. The largest IPO belonged to SolarWindsof Austin, Texas, whichy raised $113 million in its May IPO. The company makesw network and performance managemen tools forthe enterprise.