South Carolina Business Review

Nonprofit angel fund launches in Upstate S.C.

By Mike Switzer

Published September 28, 2023 at 6:30 AM EDT

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Most people have heard of angel investors, and angel funds that invest in early stage start-up companies that haven’t quite made it to the level of venture capital funding yet. Angels are usually for-profit investors, but we recently discovered a non-profit angel fund in our state and thought you might want to learn more, too. Mike Switzer interviews Mike Gatchell, CEO and co-founder of Abundance Capital in Greenville, S.C.

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Mike Switzer

After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.

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