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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

Chainalysis Acquires Hexagate for an Estimated $60M

Steve Payne
December 18th, 2024
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Transaction Overview

On December 18th, 2024, Chainalysis, a blockchain data platform specializing in cryptocurrency investigations, compliance, and risk management solutions, announced its acquisition of Hexagate—a developer of Web3 security software that increases financial transaction safety via Web3 browser security that analyzes transactions pre-signature, flags cyber and financial risks, and effectively protects users from fraud and various threats—for a rumored $60 million.

 

Target: Hexagate

Hexagate, founded in Israel in 2022, claims to have prevented fraud losses of over $1 billion through its Web3 threat detection and mitigation capabilities, such as its real-time prevention technology and its risk & security analytics API. Hexagate’s real-time prevention protects transactions by monitoring blockchain activity and using machine learning to block suspicious behavior before losses occur. In addition, Hexagate’s analytics API aggregates and analyzes on-chain data, giving clients actionable insights to identify trends, assess risks, and optimize their security strategies.

 

Hexagate helps protect protocols, chains, bridges, asset and treasury managers, exchanges, VASPs, Web3 apps and wallet providers. Relevant customers include firms like Coinbase, Consensys, Polygon, EigenLayer, Uniswap, Securitize, Immutable and more. 

 

Founded in 2022 by CEO Yaniv Nissenboim and CTO Niv Yehezkel, the firm has grown to over 900 people globally on a $8.6 million seed round investment spearheaded by Entrée Capital, with significant contributions from Samsung Next, INT3, and North First Ventures.

 

Buyer: Chainalysis

Chainalysis Inc., founded in 2014 and headquartered in New York City, is the global leader in blockchain data and analytics. The company supports over 1,000 government agencies, financial institutions, and cryptocurrency businesses across more than 70 countries. Chainalysis has aided in the recovery of over $10 billion in stolen cryptocurrency and the identification of major illicit financial networks.

 

Its flagship products include Chainalysis Know Your Transaction (KYT), a real-time compliance solution that processes billions of dollars in cryptocurrency transactions daily and Chainalysis Reactor, its investigative software, which links transactions to real-world entities. Additionally, Chainalysis Kryptos provides financial institutions with advanced risk assessment tools for cryptocurrency investments. Beyond its software offerings, Chainalysis delivers forensic services that have supported investigations into ransomware, fraud, and money laundering.

 

Backed by prominent investors such as Accel, Benchmark, GIC, and Paradigm, Chainalysis has raised over $500 million to expand its capabilities. With offices around the world, it continues to be a driving force in combating financial crimes and shaping the future of blockchain technology.

 

Transaction Parameters

Chainalysis announced the acquisition of Hexagate for an undisclosed amount, however, Israeli business website Calcalist estimates it to be around a $60 million valuation. 

 

Previous comparable transactions include: Blowfish | Phantom, Edge Intelligence | BlockX Capital, Wallet Guard | ConsenSys, Staging Labs | Markle Science.

 

Strategic Rationale

Chainalysis acquired Hexagate to expand beyond post-mortem cryptocurrency fraud investigations into real-time prevention, compliance and remediation. 

 

Chainalysis states that these capabilities are set to become increasingly more important as smart contracts facilitate more value transfer due to the growth of stablecoins and enterprise layer 1 and 2 protocols. Given this importance, Chainalysis highlighted the expertise and track record of Hexagate management as a critical component of the acquisition with the team claiming to have detected all known hacks in the last two years with 98% of them being detected before they occurred. 

 

Architect Partners’ Observations

We have long said that security is a fundamental requirement to the broader adoption of crypto, and a number of recent transactions are playing out in the space.  Smart contract audits are critical, but a recent report by Cyvers claimed that 4x more assets were actually lost last year due to access control violations than to code vulnerabilities. Better real-time threat detection and response solutions are needed to protect against this attack vector. 

 

Sources 

PitchBook, Press Release