Venture capitalists unloaded only 388 companies through mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in 2013, the lowest number since 2009 and down almost 23 percent from 2012, according to the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing, says Dan Primack, senior editor at Fortune. When the initial public offering (IPO) market is strong, as it was in 2013, venture capitalists prefer to exit their companies through IPOs rather than M&A, he writes.

Despite some exceptions, "most of the upper crust either went public, filed to go public or is expecting to go public within the next year or two (think AirBNB, Box, Dropbox, Square, Spotify, etc.)," Primack explains.

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The companies being sold in M&A "either are middling companies being dumped around par, or failed companies being sold for scrap," he notes. "That's why only 25 to 35 percent of these deals ever have their values disclosed."

So fewer M&A deals might mean that venture capital firms are producing better returns, Primack argues. The average value of disclosed deals was a buoyant $161 million, he adds.

Meanwhile, private equity firms were poised to return a record amount of cash to their investors last year, as receptive stock and bond markets enabled the firms to exit their investments profitably, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Private equity investors likely received more than $120 billion in 2013, up from the 2012 record of $115 billion, according to Cambridge Associates estimates.

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