But a new low for this decade was reached in the first quarter both in terms of dollars and in the number of deals. The $935 million was invested in 206 companies. That's less than half the total from the second quarter of 2008, when there were 417 deals; and the lowest total since the third quarter of 1995, when just 180 network companies received investments.

Even during the dot-com bust, investment totals were higher than today because VCs were giving follow-on funding to a number of start-up and seed-phase vendors, Lefteroff says. Today, the majority of funding is going to expansion and later stage companies, with few investments in true start-ups.

"If you look at seed-stage investments, there is almost nothing," Lefteroff says.

In Q1 2009, just eight network companies in the start-up/seed phase received funding, gaining a total of $8 million. For the entire year in 2008, VCs gave $256 million to 106 start-up/seed companies.

Among all network investments in the most recent quarter, the eight largest went to later stage companies. Topping the list was Quadriserv, a software vendor that received $34 million. Semiconductor firms Maskless Lithography and Plastic Logic took the number two and three slots with $23 million and $21 million, respectively.