ReadWriteStart

Throughout the economic downtown of the last few years, which is only now slowly beginning to turn around, there have been few industries that continued to create jobs and support the economy. We've mentioned before (as many others have) how the government should be doing its best to foster more entrepreneurship, one of the few areas continuing to create jobs, and Wednesday the National Venture Capital Association and StartUpHire.com job board released data supporting these suggestions.

Though rising numbers from the final quarter for 2009 had many hopeful that 2010 would see a rebound of venture capital funds, new data from the Nation Venture Capital Association (NVCA) is bound to disappoint as Q1 2010 saw the lowest first quarter numbers (PDF) in 17 years. According to the NVCA, just $3.6 billion has been raised so far this year by VCs compared to $5.2 billion in 2009 and $7.1 billion 2008.

New data released from the National Venture Capital Association shows further evidence of a rebounding acquisitions and IPO market for venture-backed companies in the first quarter of 2010. We mentioned back in January about the slight uptake in activity in the final quarter of 2009, and it seems that trend has continued upward into the new year with record breaking M&A numbers and rebounding IPO data.

While 2009 continued a downward trend as one of the worst recessions in U.S. history, the decline for venture-backed mergers and acquisitions has not been as severe as the dot-com bust in 2001 and 2002.

New figures from the National Venture Capital Association show that in the last quarter of 2009, M&A hit $7.8 billion, up from the previous year's mark of just over $2 billion. Overall, 2009's total of $12.6 billion could not match 2008's $13.6 billion total.