NEWBERRY — Charlie Banks always had an entrepreneurial mindset. He always wanted to work for himself and build companies.
He is a co-founder of South Carolina Angel Network (SCAN) and was recently named as one of the 50 most influential people of the Midlands by Columbia Business Monthly.
Columbia Business Monthly compiles the annual list from a variety of sources including nominations from the community, news reports and meticulous research. Others who were named to the list were Gov. Nikki Haley and Steve Spurrier, former head football coach at the University of South Carolina.
“I am pretty honored to be among these folks. It came as quite a surprise,” Banks said. “It was a complete shock. I found out a week before. They called and gave me a heads up that I had been chosen and that it was coming out. I found out that someone had nominated me, probably a month ago. I thought I was somewhat a long shot. Then I found out I was chosen, then I got a text from someone I had not seen in 20 years saying congratulations.”
SCAN develops and manages community based angel investment groups. Angel investors invest their own money into early stage companies and SCAN facilitates that activity. As part of SCAN, the community based angel groups are all branded from a community standpoint.
For example, the Midlands affiliate of SCAN is Capital Angels.
“We have nine groups, soon to be 11, across North and South Carolina with about 250 angel investor members,” Banks said.
The business started in November 2013 with the Greenville group, Upstate Carolina Angel Network (UCAN). Banks said that UCAN is kind of the “granddaddy” of the group. The managing director and founder of that group is Matt Dunbar, Bank’s partner.
“Matt, myself and our third partner, Paul Clark, have benchmarked the process. It was Matt who was able to successfully build at UCAN. The three of us have taken that process, expanded upon it, added some efficiencies to it and scaled that up throughout North and South Carolina,” Banks said.
SCAN has invested in 46 companies, all based in the southeast. Some of these include Pandoodle, a Columbia based company, Atlas Organics, a Spartanburg based company, and Proterra, a Greenville based company. Some of the more unique companies include seeds and medications.
“One that sticks out is a company we invested in last year called GrowJourney,” Banks said.
The company is a kind of seed of the month club with heirloom organic seeds for gardeners. The founders come from a marketing background, but are expert home gardeners. And then there is PharmRight, which is designed to service the aging population that takes multiple pills each day.
“If you could, imagine a Keurig coffee machine that dispenses your medication,” Banks said.
Banks and the other co-founders of SCAN wanted to create a pipeline from some of the wealthier accredited investors in South Carolina so they could invest in start-up companies. Each SCAN investor must be accredited, a definition that the Securities and Exchange Commission sent out.
Angel Investors can be anyone who has a net worth of a million dollars, not counting their personal residence, or has an annual income of $200,000 or $300,000 combined with their spouse.
“We have been able to get close to 250 of these accredited investors onto the SCAN platform and making investments. We are proud to say now we can combine enough capital to make a meaningful impact on these companies,” Banks said.
Banks added that it is not just about capital, but knowledge as well. Investors can get as involved with these companies as they like. If a company has a problem with a certain facet of their business, then SCAN can reach out and tap any of the investors in the network.
“It’s a big deal for not only us, because it mitigates our risk in making the investments, but it’s a big deal for the entrepreneur because they know they have a resource they can tap to help solve problems,” Banks said. “Investors like the access, they enjoy the process. We do strive to provide a really positive experience for the investors. It’s a lot of fun too.”
The investors meet once a month, look at early stage opportunities and discuss them.
Banks found SCAN because he saw first hand how difficult it was to raise capital for start ups and early stage companies in South Carolina.
“I had first hand experience with that difficulty. Matt, from an investor side, has had a very similar problem, but his was aggregating enough capital to have an impact on a company, so UCAN was constantly having to syndicate (co-invest with other Angel groups across the southeast),” he said. “What we sought to do with SCAN was to fix that essentially. We know there was not a wealth problem in South Carolina. We just knew there was an access to capital problem.”
Banks, 32, grew up in Camden. After he graduated high school in 2001, he followed his future wife, Cayci, to Newberry College. While in college, Banks was a member of Kappa Alpha Order and was involved in student government. He graduated in 2005 with a degree in business and they married the same year.
“My wife, Cayci, she went to college on a tennis scholarship. We really never left, we fell in love with the community and moved my in-laws and parents here,” Banks said.
Cayci Banks is an adjunct professor at Newberry College, where she teaches public relations. They have two children, Lucas, 6, and McLane, 2. They are expecting identical twin girls in May.