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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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  • Week of October 2 – October 8

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    Week of October 2 – October 8

    J. Todd White
    October 11, 2023
    DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT

    17 Crypto Private Financings Raised ~$161M

    Rolling 3-Month-Average: $142M

    Rolling 52-Week Average: $188M

     

    Deal count remained steady at 17 this week, though some larger raises in the Metaverse and DeFi sectors pushed proceeds well above recent weekly averages. This week also saw a shift towards DApps, with both investing and enterprise use cases receiving support.

     

    Selected Highlights 

     

    HyperSpace, a Dubai headquartered digital entertainment company, closed a $55M round led by existing investor Galaxy Interactive with participation from Apis Partners and Segal Ventures. The blockchain-native company builds and operates digital entertainment parks that integrate augmented/extended reality into a physical space for an interactive and immersive experience. Their flagship location, AYA, is a 40,000 square foot facility that opened in a Dubai mall last December.  Proceeds of the new round will be used to complete two larger parks in Riyadh and Dubai in the next few months, expand internationally (including the US) and develop additional proprietary tech.

             

    Why Notable?   

    Linking the virtual to physical reality, particularly in a non-gaming context, has been the source of much hype and speculation, but with little palpable traction. HyperSpace is at the forefront of digitally immersive entertainment with purpose-built physical gateways to the metaverse, and 480,000 tickets sold in their first 9 months suggests a fit with consumers. Time will tell whether this initial interest can be sustained.

     

    Web3 lending platform Multichainz received a $35M commitment from Bahamas-based GEM Digital. Multichainz runs a DeFi protocol to lend, borrow and stake crypto and tokenized assets across several chains including  Ethereum, Abitrum, Polygon and Avalanche. Funds will be used to expand RWA offerings as well as custodian and tokenization partners.

     

    Why Notable?  

    $35M is an impressive round for a community-led DAO raising capital through a structured token subscription, amid increasing legal and regulatory scrutiny of DeFi generally, particularly in the US, and an overall down market for capital.

     

    InfinityStake, an Australian DeFi staking platform, closed a $12m capital raise from undisclosed investors. InfinityStake’s smart contract mechanism enhances its users’ returns by arbitraging multiple staking pools.  The company’s platform helps to discover flexible staking opportunities and provides liquidity and referrals across multiple chain programs.

     

    Why Notable? 

    As with Multichainz, InfinityStake’s successful round seems a noteworthy vote of investor confidence during challenging times for DeFi.

     

    Patterns  

    The concentration of DApp financings this week is a marked shift from infrastructure’s recent dominance and continued momentum for DApps in 2023. The later stage and large rounds also contrast recent trends, with this week’s total capital regaining ground against this past year’s weekly average. While perhaps encouraging, it is too early to tell whether this represents a shift in investor sentiment, or a sustainable trend as we approach year-end.

     

    Conferences & Events

    Architect Partners is co-hosting an event with The Tie on Thurs Oct 19th at The Tie’s office (link here to register). We will also be at Money2020 (October 22 – 25).

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