When Catherine Muther retired as a millionaire from Cisco Systems four years ago, she remembered an essay by Virginia Woolf called "Three Guineas" when she named her philanthropic foundation.
In the book-length essay, Woolf is confronted with three requests for donations -- should she give one guinea to a women's college building fund, a society for preventing war, or to a society promoting the employment of women? The writer's essay is a discussion with herself regarding the social issues.
"It is the underpinning of her feminist view that women must be educated and they must have a way to earn a living," said Muther, adding that the essay represents her own mission.
With her aptly named San Francisco-based foundation, the Three Guineas Fund, Muther then decided to find projects to help women gain more business opportunities.
She did not have to look far. In her old stomping grounds of Silicon Valley, female chief executives and women entrepreneurs are still rare. One of the most difficult aspects women face in starting a business is financing.
According to the National Foundation for Women Business Owners, venture capital dollars invested in women-run businesses amounted to 1.6 percent of the total US$33.5 billion in venture capital investments made between 1991 and 1996.
While women own more than one-third of all US businesses, they tend to start companies in the retail or service industries, not the capital-intensive technology field.
"Credit and access to capital has always been a problem for women, but in those [retail and service] sectors it is not as hard," Muther said.
In technology, where most companies are started with venture capital funds, gaining entree can be tough. It's rare for a venture capitalist to fund a company that didn't come through a referral.
Muther has formed the first incubator aimed at helping women start a technology company. The aim is to give them access to the connections they need.
The project, called the Women's Technology Cluster, will open next month in San Francisco's Multimedia Gulch in the South of Market district. So far, it has assembled $500,000 in funding from private investors, corporations, and the City of San Francisco.
The Cluster will be located on a single, 22,000-square-foot floor of a warehouse, and will house 20 to 25 technology-related startups in computing, multimedia, software, networking, and communications.
Each startup will receive inexpensive office space, business consulting and mentoring from law firms and accountants, discounted health insurance, long-distance rates, and shared staff support and facilities.
The incubator also serves as a place where venture capitalists, corporations, and other investors can call upon 20 or more companies all in one visit.
The startups must pledge 2 percent of their equity to an equity investment fund earmarked for future investment in the community.
The former warehouse, located in the Townsend Building just across from the new ballpark for the San Francisco Giants baseball team, has a freight elevator, exposed brick walls and big open spaces, though no heating or air conditioning.
"It's perfect for startups," Muther said, joking that perhaps they should add some sleeping cots to the space.
The remaining four floors in the building will be available for rent to other technology and multimedia companies.
The San Francisco Partnership, a consortium that works to attract and retain business in San Francisco and is a Cluster supporter, hopes to create an Epicenter in the building, with a meeting room and a demo room for multimedia presentations.
Copyright© 1998 Reuters Limited.
