Sifting through the rubble of the bubble / Investors dig for deals to recoup startup investmentsThe goal for everyone in those rooms is the same: Extracting value from promising technologies trapped inside tech startups unlikely to survive.

"You have good technology inside bad companies," said David Spreng, managing partner of Crescendo Ventures, a Palo Alto venture firm.

Many of those companies lack a sustainable customer base, because in maturing information technology markets "you'll only have one or two winners," Spreng said.

The plummeting valuations of struggling tech startups are giving new life to financing methods not seen much since the 1980s.

These include transactions where buyers acquire entire venture portfolios,

or pay cents on the dollar for nearly bankrupt companies, or combine equity and debt investments.