Women-run tech firms get boost

Glickman, founder of MyPsych.com, is sure she'll need the space, once her company takes off.

That's kind of thing you can do here at the Women's Technology Cluster, the first-ever incubator for women-run high-tech businesses. Knock out walls, make your conquests one room at a time.

Or one venture capitalist at a time. The cluster, founded by Cisco executive cofounder, turned philanthropist Catherine Muther, is designed to increase women's access to venture funding. (See the ZDTV package on the incubator. )

Director Margarita Quihuis said the cluster makes it easier for VCs to hook up with companies. "We've prescreened them," Quihuis said. "We've done a lot of the legwork for them. They've had to pass the first hurdle to get in the incubator, so we think there must be something there."

Companies go through a rigorous screen process and must meet several criteria. They have to be a tech firm, have solid market potential and a woman at the helm.

Kind of like MyPsych. Right now, the company is a .com without a Web site, but that will change in three months, when MyPsych is launched as a psychological services portal, a WebMD for psych problems.

A tap dance
Meanwhile, Glickman has been tap-dancing for VCs, bolstered by the cluster's backing. "It's almost an added bonus to them, because they can say they're thinking outside of the box and looking at women-owned companies without feeling like they're taking the risk they might be taking if they just took a company that came in off the street," she said.

Cluster tenants get access to conference rooms, office space, T1 lines, and much-coveted brown-bag lunches with some of Silicon Valley's most prominent VCs. In exchange, they must contribute two percent of their equity to the cluster's philanthropic fund.

Right now, the cluster, based in an old coffee warehouse across the street from San Francisco's new baseball stadium, has only three companies: MyPsych, data warehouse company Integrated Data Systems, and Latino Link, a site targeting college-educated Hispanics. Two more are planning to move in by September. There's room for at least 20.

"It's been a little rocky because the cluster itself is a startup, it's still being put together," said Integrated Data Systems founder Dina Bitton. Bitton was the first woman on the computer science faculty at Cornell University after being the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Wisconsin. "But it's a very interesting experience, after having been practically the only woman in any work environment I was in."

Julie Wainwright, CEO of pets.com said she got a lot of support from VC Ann Winblad,a partner at Hummer Winblad, when she landed her first CEO job at Berkeley Systems Inc. Wainwright said the prospects for women tech executives have improved, but not enough.

"It's going to take a lot more time, and men do still control the majority of power and money, and the informal infrastrucutre is there for them to continue to control it," Wainwright said. "I'd be surprised if you have a lot of 40 year old women in technology. You can probably count them on two hands."

Venturing forth
Efforts to boost VC funding for women are on the rise. Several venture firms targeting women have sprung up in the past couple of years, including Viridian Capital and Women's Growth Capital Fund.

And there's really nowhere to go but up. Last year, only 4 percent of all VC funding went to women-owned firms, an increase from 1.6 percent a few years ago.

What's more, companies harbored in incubators are more than twice as likely to make it as companies that aren't. The challenge is getting women into the incubators, too.

Guy Kawasaki, former Apple Computer Inc. (Nasdaq:AAPL) evangelist and founder of Garage.com, which also links startups with VCs, said when it comes to getting funding, it's product, not gender, that matters. Still, he said focusing on an untapped market such as women seems like a good idea. "How could you argue against it? In a sense, it's a way of leveling the playing field," he said.

Michael Fitzgerald contributed to this story.