Venture capitalists typically make most of their returns from trade sales. But lately, they haven’t been seeing much action.

August was an unusually slow month for acquisitions of venture-backed companies. There was just one newly announced acquisition of a venture-backed Internet or technology company with a disclosed value of more than $100 million, according to Thomson Reuters data. That was Bleacher Report, a sports site backed by Crosslink Capital, Oak Investment Partners and SoftTech VC that Turner Broadcasting is buying for $175 million. After that came Venmo, a provider of mobile payment services, which sold to Braintree Payment Solutions for a reported $26 million.

Last week, there wasn’t a single newly announced venture-backed tech acquisition with a disclosed valuation, according to Thomson Reuters data. Moreover, none of the acquirers on the undisclosed ones were the kinds of large-cap tech companies known for paying large sums for sought-after targets.

By contrast, the health care sector did somewhat better. Venture-backed Elevation Pharmaceuticals, a developer of respiratory therapies, announced last week that it will be acquired by Sunovion Pharmaceuticals in a deal valued at $430 million.

The day after Labor Day didn’t start with a bang either. There were no new announcements of technology company acquisitions, according to Thomson Reuters.

Usually, these kinds of dry spells come to an end when someone decides to shell out a meaningful sum for a fast-growing company. Hopefully that will happen here. So far, however, the tech M&A climate resembles the weather much of the country has experienced this summer: a drawn out drought.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.