This is not good. Venture Capital has dropped to new lows:

Venture capital firms invested only $3 billion in 549 young companies in the first quarter, the lowest investment level since 1997, according to the analysis, done by the National Venture Capital Association and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The amount invested was down 47 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008 and 61 percent from the first quarter last year.

Though investment in every major technology sector had double-digit declines, investment in clean-technology start-ups, which reached record highs last year, took the steepest dive.

In the first quarter, only $154 million went into 33 companies, an 84 percent decline from the fourth quarter and the lowest level since 2005, just before clean technology began to take off.