Girls Just Wanna Have Funds Changing the way venture capital firms look at women

Can women get venture capital funding? The arguments on bothsides are equally persuasive.

Venture capitalists say they consider profit potential, notgender, when looking for deals. But despite this apparentneutrality, women only got an estimated 4 to 5 percent of the $38billion invested in the United States in 1999.

"More women are being funded today, and there are a numberof highly qualified women seeking funding, but relative to thetotal market, the numbers are small," says Willa Seldon,general partner with San Francisco-based Viridian Capital, thenewest SBA-backed small-business investment company (SBIC)targeting women entrepreneurs.