Both venture dollars and deal counts were down in the first three quarters of 2012 (note: link opens pdf) and Q4 doesn’t feel poised to surprise on the upside. Even follow-on funding has been down, but mostly it’s the initial investments (Series A, etc) that have fallen by the wayside. This is driven by the significant withdrawal of generalists from the sector, and the reality that specialist VC firms are low on capital reserves. More on this below, but it doesn’t seem like LPs will suddenly start demanding VCs invest in cleantech or start making big commitments to the sector, at least in the next few months, and there’s a lag time between such shifts at the LP level and how deal volumes flow down through the GP level anyway.