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Champ Titles Raised $18M from Point72 Ventures
Champ Titles Raised $18M from Point72 Ventures

Architect Partners was the exclusive Financial Advisor to Champ Titles.

Transaction Overview

On March 27, 2024, Cleveland-based digital title and registration platform Champ Titles announced an $18 million Series C equity round led by Point72 Ventures with participation by existing investors.

Company Description

Champ Titles provides a digital title and registration suite to streamline the vehicle titling process. Their platform enables the creation of legal, digital titles for easy transfer and verification, serving insurance carriers, lenders, state governments, auto dealers, and owners. Stakeholders, including state motor vehicle departments, lenders, and vehicle owners, benefit from a unified and transparent system, where all information is readily accessible and transaction times are markedly reduced. The governance of the digital platform is established through clear guidelines, ensuring all parties adhere to the updated processes and regulations.

Champ Titles’ success is measured by the elimination of more than 5 million pieces of paper annually on average per state; a reduction in processing time from 40-60 days to a matter of hours; increased productivity of DMV title clerks processing more than five times as many titles per day; and the improved experience for consumers in each state that has adopted Champ Titles’ solutions. Over the last twelve months, the company has successfully onboarded new states including New Jersey, Kentucky, and Illinois, and expanded its relationship with West Virginia by creating the first National Digital Titling Clearinghouse (NDTC). Through these efforts, the company has grown rapidly with revenue increasing by more than 300% year over year. 

Founded in 2018 by CEO, Shane Bigelow, the company now has 63 employees and is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. 

Funding

In this Series C funding round, Champ Titles raised $18M from Point72 Ventures and existing investors including W.R. Berkley Corporation, Eos Venture Partners, Guidewire Software, and Rev1 Ventures, bringing the total amount raised since inception to $45M. 

In the prior Series B round, Champ Titles raised $13M from Guidewire Software, Eos Venture Partners, and Ally Ventures.

Before that, Champ Titles raised $13.5M in 2021 in a Series A. Emergents, now Architect Partners, served as the exclusive Financial Advisor for that financing. 

Competition

Champ Titles’ biggest competitors are existing state DMVs deciding to be a software company and developing solutions on their own or via large systems developers.  However, they also compete with other digital title networks such as Cario and Oxhead Alpha/Tezos. In addition, technology-enabled DMV solutions such as Fast Enterprises are seen as competitive but don’t offer the same efficacy.

 

Architect Partners’ Perspective

Champ Titles’ SaaS-based solutions present a compelling example of blockchain-enabled infrastructure solving real-world problems.  By focusing on the needs and pain points of legacy auto title, registration, and lien processing, Champ has leveraged the power of blockchain to transform critical government services.  The result is exponentially accelerated processing time for DMV constituents, with improved accuracy and reduced cost.  Yet Champ’s solutions capture many key benefits of on-chain data processing – which include trust, transparency, data integrity, security, and efficiency – without users even being aware of their blockchain foundations.  

While much attention is focused on recent resilience in crypto asset prices, we believe 2024 will see significant growth in non-speculative enterprise applications for distributed ledger technology.  Champ’s successful raise demonstrates investor interest in practical and scalable solutions to real-world problems.

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Alchemy Acquires Bware Labs for an Undisclosed Amount

Steve Payne
September 1st, 2024
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Transaction Overview

On August 29, 2024, Web3 development platform Alchemy announced its acquisition of Bware Labs, also a Web3 development platform that provides blockchain infrastructure and API services, for an undisclosed amount. 

 

Target: Bware Labs

Bware Labs is a Web3 infrastructure company that supports over thirty blockchain networks and operates more than 44 validators. The company serves over 100 enterprise customers, including CoinGecko, Fantom, and Connext. Bware Labs has formed strategic partnerships with leading blockchain projects such as Avalanche, Polygon, and Astar.

 

The company’s key offerings include the Blast API, which connects developers to 101 networks and 48 chains, along with various validator and bridging services, faucet connections, and governance proposals. Other offerings include App Chains, an application-specific blockchain that allows developers to specify their projects’ economies, governance, and consensus algorithms through features such as Enterprise Validator, dedicated RPC endpoints, and indexing.

 

In 2023, Bware Labs launched the $INFRA token.. The fully diluted market cap of $INFRA as of 9/1/2024 was $21.8M and the total circulating supply of 100M. Key allocations include 12.2M for the seed round, 12M for a Series A round, 20M for treasury, and 25M for protocol incentives. 

 

Bware Labs was founded in Romania in 2021 by Flavian Manea, Alexandru Minulescu, Matei Popp, and Radu Enoiu, and now has over 45 employees, mostly developers/engineers. The company raised a total of $6.9M in token and equity funding, with $900K in a Seed round led by Ascensive Assets and $6M in a Series A round with investors such as The Spartan Group, Woodstock Fund, Nexo, and Nabais Capital. Bware was last valued at $50M post-money in their Series A.

 

Buyer: Alchemy 

Alchemy is a Web3 development platform that provides blockchain infrastructure and tools, such as APIs, SDKs, and node management, to support the development of decentralized applications across multiple blockchains. Alchemy has facilitated over $100 billion in on-chain transaction volume, paid $1.5 billion in royalties to NFT creators, has had over 100 million end users, and supports projects such as OpenSea, Axie Infinity, Polygon, and WorldCoin.

 

Their main offerings include APIs that support tokens, NFTs, transactions, and Web3 development for developers and infrastructure for rollups, integrations, and subgraphs for various blockchains. The company supports enterprise, NFT, gaming, and DeFi projects. 

 

Alchemy was founded in 2013 by Nikil Viswanathan and Joe Lau and now has over 280 employees. The company has raised $564M over five funding rounds in April 2019, December 2019, April 2021, October 2021, and February 2022, from lead investors such as Lightspeed Venture Partners, Silver Lake, a16z, Coatue, and Addition, as well as angel investors like Peter Thiel, Will Smith, and Reid Hoffman. Alchemy was valued at $10.2B post-money in their last funding round.

 

Transaction Parameters

Alchemy agreed to acquire Bware for an undisclosed amount but revealed that it is their largest acquisition to date, increasing their headcount by 25%.

 

Alchemy has announced it will not take over Bware’s INFRA protocol and Bware announced that it will be stepping away from its role as a core contributor to the technology supported by the $INFRA token. 

 

Strategic Rationale

Alchemy’s acquisition of Bware Labs aims to enhance its blockchain infrastructure and expand globally. By integrating Bware Labs’ Blast API and decentralized infrastructure, Alchemy strengthens its platform and broadens its customer base through Bware’s existing partnerships with major blockchain networks like Polygon and Avalanche. Furthermore, the acquisition provides a path for Alchemy’s expansion into Europe. Bware’s presence in Europe, which is leading in crypto regulation via its MiCA rules, also offers a gateway to entry into other markets in the region.

 

Architect Partners’ Observations

This transaction makes strategic sense for Alchemy.  And as a leader in Web3 infrastructure with players like Consensys it has the capacity to start filling in holes in its delivery capabilities.

 

The Web2 hyperscalers all currently offer some Web3 infrastructure to  developers (usually covering only a handful of chains), and we expect to see them more active in M&A as demand for Web3 grows.