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Project: Women's Technology Cluster 
The Women's Technology Cluster (WTC) was founded as an operating project of the Three Guineas Fund in 1999, as an entrepreneurial community of technology businesses in which women have a principal ownership stake. The central objective of the WTC is to facilitate access to capital by women entrepreneurs. While the rate of new business formation by women has grown at a rapid rate, barriers to access to capital persist as a systemic problem for women entrepreneurs. The National Foundation of Women Business Owners reports that of the nearly 8 million women owned businesses in the United States, only one percent have used venture capital financing. The WTC is designed as a model for breaking structural and cultural barriers by accelerating the growth, reducing the perceived risk, and facilitating access to angel and venture capital financing for women technology entrepreneurs. A second objective of the WTC is to educate entrepreneurs to give back to the community. The WTC is establishing a culture and value system of giving back, influencing entrepreneurs in the formative stages of their businesses. Each new business entering the cluster contributes a small percentage of the firm's equity into a Venture Philanthropy Fund. As Cluster companies achieve liquidity through merger/acquisition or an IPO, funds become available for social investment in the non-profit sector. Income from the Fund will provide grants to sustain the WTC and to support other non-profit programs in the community addressing social and economic change. In March 2003 the WTC "spun-off" into an independent non-profit organization with its own governing board and executive leadership. For more information on the WTC and its companies, see www.wtc-sf.org.
To read an article about the Women's Technology Cluster, click on the image. If you
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