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When Sharon Vosmek gives her team of executive entrepreneurs a pre-game pep talk before meeting with potential investors, she is just as likely to use the word relationship as she is funding, venture capital or exit.

Vosmek has lived, deciphered and mastered the Silicon Valley funding strategy—and she knows the strategy starts with who you know, and perhaps more importantly, who knows you.

"You want to be relevant to these people long before you are selling your company or pursing investments," she said. "You want to have something to offer to them as well as take from them … [these relationships] are about making you relevant in the industry for the rest of your career."

Vosmek is the CEO of Astia, a non-profit dedicated to increasing the number of women-led, high growth businesses. In 2006, only 4.3 percent of venture capital funded companies had female CEOs, down from 7.5 percent in 2002, according to data from VentureOne.

Astia is known for its annual venture capital conference. This year, companies in the health and wellness sector joined high tech and life science companies in presenting to investors.

By plugging the emerging companies into the extensive Silicon Valley network, Astia hopes to increase the number of venture-funded, women-led companies. This year, 190 VCs, CEOs and C-level executives coached the 30 start-ups selected to participate in the 2007 conference for two months prior to the event.

First, the coaches help the companies surmount their business challenges. Second, the advisors connect the start-ups into the broader Silicon Valley ecosystem and help them build connections and relationships, Vosmek said.

"Our companies are hidden by the nature of the fact that they are women," she said. "It's just a gender issue. When I talk to VCs, [it's] who do they know. Only seven percent of VCs right now are women, so you are looking at a majority male business. And they do business with friends and colleagues that they network with, and that is primarily men."

Mitchell Kertzman, managing director of the San Francisco firm Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, said that it is unfortunate, but true, that many women haven't had access to the VC marketplace while "they might have the technological ideas or the product ideas, but they don't have the experience at presenting those ideas and their businesses to investors."

Hummer Winblad invested in software integrity company, Palamida, after the start-up presented at an Astia conference.

"What Asita does is they give [the selected companies] a significant amount of training and mentoring and coaching … such that their businesses, when they get to present them, will be competitive and attractive," Kerzman said. The non-profit is "taking an underserved population that may not have been on the track of funding and getting them to the point where they can be seen and funded."

Since 2003, the San Francisco-based organization has worked with 110 hand-selected, women-led companies. Astia's start-ups have raised over $246 million in financing. Six companies have had successful exits. Last year, 60 percent of the presenting companies received funding.  

"I am definitely taking women to the game," Vosmek said. "I am not interested in creating a separate women's network."

Successful entrepreneur, author and magazine executive, Robin Wolaner, has founded two start-ups, Parenting Magazine in 1986 and the social network, TeeBeeDee (tbd.com) in 2006.

Her 2005 book, "Naked in the Boardroom: A CEO Bares Her Secrets So You Can Transform Your Career," includes a chapter on raising capital.

In an interview, Wolaner said the process of raising funding is not different for women.

"I don't think it's different for women," she said. "I think that we are late to the party."

When Wolaner first started looking for funding for Parenting, she called 70 people to ask for funding. In the end, she had 10 seed investors, "nine of whom had never heard of me before. That is a much tougher road," she said.

This time around, when she looked for seed funding for TeeBeeDee, the process was much different than the cold calls she made 20 some years ago—she raised $1.1 million from eight people, all of whom she knew.

"Having those people know me was just a huge leap forward," she said.

Vosmek stresses that every entrepreneur must learn how to develop lasting relationships with investors. One way to do this, she said, is to talk to the VC or angel about more than the business plan.

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