More Tea Leaves

Just a quick one with no particular insight.

I mentioned a while ago how the question of whether or not we're coming out of the economic Dark Ages depends on whose tea leaves you choose to read. I just received a new datapoint and thought I would share it with you.

John Hession at Cooley just sent me a copy of their latest report on the state of early stage deal making. Some ups, some downs, some flats, but it's good reading. It's based on Cooley's impressive portfolio of 376 transactions in 2009 where they served as counsel to one of the two sides of the table. Despite an abysmal start to the year, Q4 ended up strong in many areas including deal flow, pre-money valuations and overall deal size.

It's only 6 pages. Take a look. I choose to see this as additional good news.