(FORTUNE Small Business) – One point seven percent," snaps Kay Koplovitz, author of the new book Bold Women, Big Ideas. "In 1997, when I started looking at the statistics, 1.7% of the total amount invested by venture capitalists went to women entrepreneurs. Is that a problem?" Koplovitz pauses for effect, her fork hovering above her plate, her sharp blue eyes pinning me to my chair. "Maybe."

Don't know Koplovitz? She founded USA Network in 1977, becoming the first woman network president in television history. She was still running USA two decades later when Barry Diller merged it with Home Shopping Network in a deal valued at $4.1 billion. We're having lunch today at Thalia's in New York City, a few blocks from the Times Square headquarters of Koplovitz's latest media adventure, Broadway Television Network, which puts live theater on movie screens, pay-per-view, DVD, and broadband. (Or is trying to; the concept, Koplovitz concedes, is "a little bit ahead of the marketplace.") Koplovitz is chairman (her term) of BTN, former chair (Bill Clinton's term!) of the National Women's Business Council, and founder of Angels4Equity, a boutique private-equity fund for women only. But her heart these days is with Springboard, a nonprofit network of mentors, investors, and entrepreneurs she designed to open doors to the clubby, male-dominated world of venture capital. So far it's brought nearly 100 woman-owned companies $750 million.

"Woman entrepreneurs don't know how to get into the network of VCs, and the VCs, who are primarily men, don't know these women," she says, putting down her fork. "It's not a rejection so much as a disconnect. We were told [by the VCs] that there weren't any women out there. We knew that wasn't true. So we said, 'We'll find them, you fund them.' "

Springboard's other mission is educational. That $4.1 billion Diller deal for USA? Koplovitz got shut out. She'd sold her stake for a relative pittance years earlier, before anyone knew what cable networks were worth. That's a lesson she hopes other women won't have to learn the hard way.

Partly as a result of her efforts, the women's piece of the venture capital pie has grown; Koplovitz says it's about 6% now. Which is progress, but not enough. "When women are starting businesses at twice the rate of men, that is not a good statistic." She adds that women own nearly one-third of the businesses in America, but woman-owned companies are getting only 12% of the loans. Plus, only 5% of VCs are women, and men outnumber women in Fortune 500 boardrooms nine to one. (Don't get smug, little guy. Big-company boards are four times more likely to have women on them than small-company boards.)

The shame of it all is that women may be better suited to running small, fast-growing companies than men are--at least that's what freshly enlightened VCs tell Koplovitz. Women "don't like to overpromise and underdeliver," they are "anxious to learn more about the marketplace and can adapt quickly," and they display "tremendous receptivity to comments and criticism." Is she saying that men don't? Koplovitz nails me again with those eyes. Only this time she doesn't look angry. In fact, I'd swear she's amused.