VC firms invested in 904 deals worth $7.1 billion in Q3, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PWC) latest MoneyTree report. That’s down 7 percent from the 1,033 deals in Q2 worth $7.7 billion, but “within historical norms.” Some highlights:

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—Internet-related investments were down 36 percent from Q2 : There were still 194 deals worth $1.1 billion in Q3, but that was down from Q2’s “seven year high” of $1.6 billion. It was also the ninth consecutive quarter that VC firms pumped more than $1 billion into Web-based companies.

—Fewer and cheaper first time deals: 259 companies received their first investments in Q3, down 20 percent from 322 in Q2, an indication that VCs may be getting pickier about the startups they invest in. At $1.5 billion, the dollar amount of these first stage deals was also down 12 percent from Q2, and this shift happened before Wall Street’s implosion. We’ll follow up in Q4 to see if this trend continues. 

—Expect investments to go down, but not out : “We do expect to see a dip in investing over the next several quarters ... We also do not expect venture funding to dry up. Venture capitalists have slugged through difficult economic times before and this one should be no different,” said Tracy T. Lefteroff, PwC’s global managing partner of PwC’s VC division.