WOMEN-OWNED START-UPS STAKE OUT SILICON VALLEY CLAIMS.

Byline: Elizabeth Wasserman Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

When CEO Kathryn Tunstall moved the high-tech start-up, Conceptus, into a San Carlos, Calif., office building in 1993, part of the history of Silicon Valley was evident in the restrooms.

The men's room was large, with a bank of stalls and urinals.

Women were limited to two tiny bathrooms. Each had only one stall. And the one near the lobby was probably for guests. ``It was a big problem,'' said Tunstall, whose company designs medical devices to diagnose and treat infertility, ``because we employ more women than men.''

Tunstall, who gave up an executive post at hospital supplier Baxter International when she was asked to head the start-up, is among a growing number of women in Silicon Valley seeking a more equitable distribution of resources - from restroom space to venture capital financing. In pursuit of their goal, they are jumping off the corporate ladder before bumping their heads on the glass ceiling.

After years of being kept from the top executive's job and off Silicon Valley's list of highest corporate salaries, more women are starting companies of their own. They're fleeing corporate management ranks to join start-up ventures, where they have a better shot at the CEO's office. And a growing number are winning a slice of the multibillion-dollar pie distributed annually by venture capitalists, hoping - just like their male counterparts - to be founding the next Netscape.

``The mythology of Silicon Valley so far has been a man's story. But that's changing,'' said Michele Bolton, executive director of San Jose State University's Center to Develop Women Entrepreneurs. ``I always say the wave of women entrepreneurial ventures is like the Delancey Street of old. There are so many successful immigrants. But they didn't all come over with ideas suitable for venture capital financing. Rather they came more with apple carts. But we will see a journey into new types of businesses, and more ambitious businesses, over time.''

The journey is already under way for some women. To the ranks of Steves, Bills and Larrys, Silicon Valley historians may someday have to add Judys, MaryAnns and Cheryls.

Twenty years ago, Cheryl Vedoe was one of very few software engineers at Digital Equipment Corp. She worked her way through the ranks of Digital, Apollo, and Sun Microsystems, sharpening her skills in everything from work stations to multiprocessor servers. At Apple, she got to dabble in a new area, serving as vice president of the K-12 education business until 1994. But when the company wanted her to move her career in a different direction, Vedoe ventured out on her own.

``I quite honestly never envisioned starting a company,'' said Vedoe, who now serves as CEO and president of Tenth Planet, an educational software start-up in Half Moon Bay with a staff of 40. ``I'd become very passionate about education, to borrow an Apple term. But I'm also first and foremost a business person. What investors look for in entrepreneurs is a really strong belief in what they are doing. I was and am as committed and passionate as any entrepreneur you'll find. And with my background and track record I was able to convince investors to back me.''

In three years, she has increased Tenth Planet's yearly venture capital backing from $3 million to $6 million.

While there are no hard statistics on the number of women leaving companies to join start-ups in Silicon Valley, the growing role of businesswomen is evident in a variety of ways.

Virtually every venture capital firm along the valley's ``Venture Corridor'' on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park now counts a handful of women-founded or women-run companies among their lucrative portfolios. Five years ago, that was the exception, not the rule.

The faces have changed at the annual dinner the Mayfield Fund holds for CEOs of the companies it backs. ``When we first started holding them five years ago, there was not a woman in the room,'' recalled partner Kevin Fong. These days, he can list four women CEOs off the top of his head. ``It's still not enough, but at least it's something.''

U.S. census studies have shown that women are creating businesses at double the national average. The Bay Area has the third-highest concentration of women-owned businesses in the country. According to data from Dun & Bradstreet and the National Foundation for Women Business Owners, there are nearly 8 million women-owned firms in the United States that employ 16 million workers. But most of those businesses are small. Only 1 percent employ more than 100 workers.

Women have been involved in computing since Ada Lovelace helped Charles Babbage with the world's first programmable computer, the Analytical Engine, in the early 1800s. But there is not a single woman among the 100 highest-paid executives at Silicon Valley's 150 largest public companies, according to a San Jose Mercury News survey.

Bolton, who is working on a book about women entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, said she studied initial public offerings since 1991 and found very little change in the percentage of women-run companies here. This year, women lead only three out of the 43 local companies that had IPOs. No one knows how many other companies headed by women might be in the pipeline because it often takes three to five years of venture capital financing before a company is ready to hold a public stock offering.

Like many other businesses, Northern California's $1.7 billion venture capital industry is motivated by making money, not affirmative action.

``I think gender is fairly irrelevant,'' said Ruthann Quindlen, of Institutional Venture Partners, in Menlo Park. ``What's looked at when you come in is how good is your idea and how great is your team.''