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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.

Alerts

BitGo Raises $100 Million

Michael S. Klena
August 17, 2023
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The company has now raised a total of $169.5M over seven funding rounds, with their Series B funding of ~$43M, led by Valor Equity Partners, taking place in December 2017.

Transaction Overview

On August 16, 2023, BitGo raised $100 million in Series C funding from new strategic investors at a $1.75B valuation. 

 

Company Description

BitGo is an NYDFS-regulated qualified custodian (QC) providing custody, financial services, and core infrastructure to over 1,500 institutional clients globally. The company is the leading crypto custodian, processing 20% of all Bitcoin transactions by value, and has top-tier clients such as Nike, Bitstamp, Pantera, eToro, and Mysten Labs. Since the beginning of 2023, new clients have grown by over 60%.

 

BitGo has three core offerings: 1) custody, 2) prime brokerage services, and 3) BitGo settlement network (Go Network). BitGo’s core custody offering includes hot, cold, and self-custodial wallets along with a “wallet-as-a-service” offering for web3 applications that creates and manages wallets for end-users. Launched in May 2020, BitGo Prime offers trading, lending, liquidity, and staking services to institutional clients. Since launch, staking services have increased by 40x. Earlier in 2023, the BitGo Settlement Network or Go Network was launched, seeking to replace the void left by the shutdown of SEN and Signet. Through BitGo Trust accounts, institutional clients can instantly transfer and settle digital and fiat assets. BitGo has created a closed-loop system that keeps clients’ assets in a secure, qualified custodian (BitGo) and enables them to have full BitGo Prime interoperability (trading, lending, staking, etc). Currently, OTC desks, exchanges, hedge funds, broker-dealers, lenders, payment processors, and security token issuers are actively utilizing the platform. 

 

BitGo was founded in 2013 by Mike Belshe and Ben Davenport and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. The firm has ~100 employees and is led by CEO Mike Belshe.

 

Funding

The company has now raised a total of $169.5M over seven funding rounds, with their Series B funding of ~$43M, led by Valor Equity Partners, taking place in December 2017. The current Series C round puts their valuation at $1.75B. Previous investors include Goldman Sachs, Galaxy Digital, and DRW.

 

BitGo plans to use the funding for strategic acquisitions in the fintech infrastructure and services space and global expansion. The company had plans to acquire Prime Trust in June, however, that acquisition was terminated due to Prime Trust’s bankruptcy. 

 

Competition

BitGo competes with other crypto custody and infrastructure firms, as well as groups involved in payments. Some examples include Fireblocks, Copper, Anchorage Digital, Komainu, Coinbase Custody, Hex Trust, and BCB Group. 

 

Architect Partners’ Perspective

The main theme driving this capital raise is simple: trust wins.

 

BitGo continues to be a trusted custodian for the institutional digital asset ecosystem and has been since its inception in 2013. Since its founding, there have never been any security breaches or incidents that would lead to mistrust. While many others struggle with hacks and security, BitGo has thrived, with increased client onboarding by 60% since January 2023 driving a 20% AUC increase. 

 

Another consideration impacting the crypto trading sector is the US regulators considering separating the various functions of crypto execution (execution, custody, lending, etc) to help reduce counterparty risk for crypto customers. Nasdaq’s decision to not pursue crypto custody is a clear sign that this regulatory concern is real and roles within the trade lifecycle of crypto are becoming more clear. 

 

Today the market dynamics of late-stage crypto financings continue to be challenging. By this time last year, there had been 56 capital raises greater than $100M totaling $12.9B in capital raised. This year to date there have been only 8 deals greater than $100M totaling $1.2B in capital raised. The reason for the large downturn is that despite the negative crypto market pressures, venture capitalists are still requiring significant growth to invest. With the vast majority of late-stage crypto companies seeing declining revenues, only a select few can raise capital. 

 

Sources 

PitchBook, Company Website, Press Release