Via PEHub, here's some data to sink your teeth into about the state of private capital.  As their post points out, slide 14 highlights some interesting return data.  Not sure an 8.8% 5 year return is much to brag about although the 10 year return number is a more respectable 16.6% for venture funds (9.5% for all private equity in the same time period…eck!).   Also, this data was as of 6/2008 before current market…um…volatility.

Exits are exceeding life of funds in many cases (ie, more than 10 years) which puts a whole new dynamic into venture funding and that was before the current market trauma.  The IPO market will return.  It's just a matter of when and until then the entire asset class is going to be under scrutiny from those that fund it.