VentureBeat just blogged about some new statistics published by Thomson Reuters and the NVCA in this post: Venture fundraising: Going, going, gone?.

Here is the most damning/shocking excerpt from this post:

Venture capital funds raised only $3.4 billion in the last three months of 2008, according to new data from Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association. Unsurprisingly, this is a big drop (about 70.9 percent) from the same period in 2007, when venture firms raised $11.7 billion, and also a substantial decline from the $8.4 billion raised in Q3 of 2008.

In my previous post, A Time for Change in Venture Capital, I’d guess-timated that a 50% reduction in the total money going into venture capital is not inconceivable, but a 70% decline is even more severe. I would still hazard a guess that Q4 2008 was by far the worst economic time for venture fund-raising — primarily because the LP portfolios were so battered that no one was really in the mood to talk about new commitments to venture (and even especially given that the returns on venture capital have been nothing but disappointing for most LPs). Depending on how 2009 shapes up, chances are that the 2009 numbers will perform better than the 70% decline for Q4 2008. Very curious to see how this year plays out for the venture industry.