Charleston hosts South Carolina Investor Network’s fall meeting

The South Carolina Investor Network will hold its fall meeting in Charleston on Nov. 17. Hosted by Automated Trading Desk, the meeting will include a presentation by Steve Swanson, chief executive officer of ATD, with a tour of the company’s trading floor, and will also include a presentation by Ernest Andrade, executive director of the Charleston Digital Corridor, who plans to discuss the corridor’s current projects and future plans during a tour of the organization’s facility in downtown Charleston. Regular SCIN features, such as a venture capital spotlight, presentation by a start-up biotech company and a networking party are also planned.

Fred Sturgis, managing partner of HIG Ventures, one of the largest and most successful venture capital firms in the Southeast, will also present at the meeting. His company is focused on early stage, high growth technology and health care companies, and its most recent venture capital fund has total capital of over $250 million.

Dr. Joe Sinkule, president of Virionics Corp., will speak on the company’s spin-off from the Medical University of South Carolina, which is focused on developing and commercializing a safe and highly effective new antigen delivery platform for prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, inflammatory diseases and cancer.

SCIN regularly brings together professionals from around the state to network and consider current issues in financing and structuring business investments, in managing the start-up, growth and liquidity of business ventures, and in expanding the state’s entrepreneurial resources. “We try to hold at least three meetings a year, one in Charleston, Columbia and Greenville,” says Alan Craig, SCIN board member and managing partner/CEO of Southeastern Capital Partners.

“SCIN is not a member organization, it is a networking organization,” explains Craig. “There is no formal membership, but we typically have between 60 and 100 people at each event.”

SCIN began in 1999 with investors, dealmakers, professional advisors and service providers discussing business investment issues and opportunities. Participants of SCIN share a common goal: To facilitate the creation and growth of high-impact companies in South Carolina. They are experienced venture capital and private equity investors, angel investors, business lawyers, accountants, investment bankers and business brokers and other business advisers and service providers.

Craig says the group is made up of people interested in the deal process in South Carolina such as CPAs, attorneys, venture capitalists and private investors, who have an interest in investing in high growth companies. “We try to network with people seriously interested in quality, private equity investing opportunities,” says Craig.

“When I started, there were very few angel or seed funds to be found in the area or in South Carolina,” Swanson says, adding that SCIN is an example of how the area is taking some steps forward. “That is beginning to change. We now have the South Carolina Investors Network, Charleston Angel Partners—there are pockets that are forming across the state. It’s a very positive thing.”

Swanson believes this type of networking would be more productive for a firm that was selling a product in South Carolina. “I’ve been involved with SCIN for about three years now, and I find it challenging, stimulating and, from a business community perspective, a very positive and very healthy thing for the state,” he says.

However, “This group does not make investments,” says Swanson. “Several organizations get a chance to present their companies to the group, and it is the individual’s responsibility to contact the technology company if [he or she wants] to go off and entertain an investment.”

Since each SCIN participant is in business to identify, consult, fund or service entrepreneurial companies, the network serves as a resource for members to assist each other. SCIN’s members also assist entrepreneurs in tapping into the state’s resources to facilitate realistic business plans for solid company growth, significant investor returns and favorable impacts on South Carolina.

“There is more that can be done to help foster and promote early stage companies,” says Swanson. “If you look at the venture capital invested in Georgia and other surrounding states compared to South Carolina, we’re pathetic. That’s not to say there isn’t a lot of risk associated with investments like that, but it’s needed to help early stage companies get off of the block.”

SCIN’s quarterly meetings are held statewide, rotating between SCIN members who volunteer to host the half-day forum. Guests are welcomed to the meetings, space permitting. Members are assessed their share of any cost for the meeting, and SCIN maintains no office or administrative staff, so no dues are assessed.

Meetings are informal, collegial and conversational. Members share information about their business interests and resources, and are encouraged to regularly update other participants, either directly or through SCIN’s web site.