Credit markets may still be tight, but capital availability is showing signs of improvement, attendees and panelists said Thursday morning at the ACG Deals & Diligence Symposium, in Jersey City's Hyatt Regency.

“There’s been a sea change for the better when it comes to raising capital,” said panelist Jean Smith, from the New York investment bank Gordian Group LLC.

Fellow panelist Bill Carson, from New York investment fund Hudson Ventures, agreed, adding that the early-stage technology companies he focuses on are “finding that it’s getting easier to raise capital.”

In fact, more companies “are getting pickier” about the structure of the capital funding they’ll accept, said R. Adam Smith, CEO of Circle Peak Capital, a New York investment firm.

Some conference attendees also saw positive signs.

“Private equity firms are able to take on more senior debt,” said Mark S. Kuehn, president of the New Jersey chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth. “That means they’ll be able to fund to more acquisitions.”

That’s good news for sellers, added Kuehn, who also serves as corporate counsel at the Newark law firm Gibbons.

“We haven’t seen a significant rise in [price-earnings] multiples just yet,” he said. “But the pressure is building up.”

One Rochelle Park investment banking services company already is seeing an uptick in merger and acquisition activity, but the movement’s not coming from domestic players.

“We’re seeing a lot of non-U.S. funding sources interested in buying U.S. companies,” said DAK Group President Alan Scharfstein. “The falling euro could crimp the activity, but even so, the European Union’s [fiscal] problems are driving more people to see the U.S. as a safe haven for their investments.”

E-mail Martin C. Daks at mdaks@njbiz.com