Clearing the Hurdles: Women Building High-Growth Businesses

218 CLEARING THE HURDLES: WOMEN BUILDING HIGH-GROWTH BUSINESSES

Just three months later, on March 11, 2000, the NASDAQ reached

its record high. The public markets then began to show signs of weak-

ening and the IPO market slowed to a trickle as private companies real-

ized that they would have to accept much lower valuations. Many

scrapped their decision to go to the public markets in favor of second

or third rounds of private financing.

However, as the financial markets continued to languish, many

young ventures discovered that private funds were also hard to find. In

2001, venture capital partnerships raised only $40.7 billion in new

funds and invested only $41.9 billion (down from a record $107 billion

in 2000). There were only 88 IPOs in 2001.

8

In 2002, ...