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In the last two months, we have interviewed six VCs. In each case, we asked the same question: "How is early-stage financing doing during this downturn compared to the last one in 2001/2002?"

In this post, we consolidate all the responses, to see if a consensus among VCs emerged. But we also dig a bit deeper. We have been tracking Series A deals since the global financial crisis started. There is some concern that VCs are not walking the walk, that they say all the right things about investing through a downturn, but they may not actually do those things. In this post, we shine a light on that question.

For the fifth in our series of interviews with investors, we decided to do something different. Elliott Dahan, of the START Fund, cannot write you a check. At least not yet; he is working on that. But he is trying to do something much more ambitious, which is to create a totally new model for funding early- and seed-stage ventures. VCs love to fund disruptive ventures. But the VC model itself has been pretty immune to change for decades. So Elliott has set himself the tough job of disrupting the disrupters.

Pity the poor venture capitalist. Times were... well, so cushy. Money was flowing, deals were being done in record time, monetization was something one worried about later, and Silicon Valley was bursting at the seams. The sweet smell of wealth creation was everywhere. But suddenly, money got tight and the portfolio companies of many VC firms went on life support. So let's hear from a couple of well-known early-stage investors, each with close to a decade under his belt, who we learned are largely undaunted by the current melancholia.