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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

CoinDesk Acquires CCData & CryptoCompare for an Undisclosed Amount

Ryan McCulloch
October 17, 2024
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Transaction Overview

On October 16th, 2024, CoinDesk, a crypto-focused media company, announced its acquisition of CCData, an institutional crypto data provider, and their retail data aggregator, CryptoCompare, for an undisclosed valuation.

 

 

Target: CCData & CryptoCompare

Founded in 2014, CCData was one of the first companies to identify quality exchange volume data that differentiated between what was real and fake, thus becoming the industry standard. Their data offering covers over 7,000 digital assets, 300 exchanges, and 40 billion data calls per month. They also offer a liquid digital indices product that tracks $4B in AUM across 250 investable indices through VanEck, SGX, and Nomura. Lastly, they offer institutional research and an API call that taps into 300+ exchanges and 300,000 digital asset pairs to help inform institutional traders.

 

The company’s client base spans over 500 regulators, asset managers, and banks such as JP Morgan, Refinitiv, Coinbase, MSCI, SIX, 21Shares, ETC Group, and SGX among others.

 

According to FCA filings, CCData had revenues of $4.0M, $3.3M, and $2.5M in 2023, 2022, and 2021 respectively. In 2023 the firm had $261K in profits.

 

Founded in 2014 and based in London, CCData has around 70 employees. The company had raised $9.3M over three funding rounds and two angel investments. In January 2024, the company raised $2.5M from MV Index Solutions, putting the company’s post-money valuation at $41M. Other investors included VanEck and Cadenza Capital.

 

CryptoCompare, founded as the retail arm of CCData, serves around 300,000 users, offering real-time and historical data on digital assets, including prices and trading volumes, along with tools like crypto indices, portfolio tracking, and analytics. The platform supports individual and institutional clients, aiming to provide accurate and reliable data for trading, investment, and research needs.

 

CCData main competitors include Amberdata, Lukka, CoinGecko, CoinMetrics, Messari, Kaiko, and CoinMarketCap.

 

 

Buyer: CoinDesk

CoinDesk is a crypto-focused media platform that has three core businesses. 1) A content producer that publishes articles and research on the crypto industry, 2) An indices business that benchmarks tracks $8B in trading volume, and 3) An event organizer that puts on the Consensus conferences.

 

Based in NYC and founded in 2013 by Shakil Khan, CoinDesk now has over 150 employees. The company was first acquired by Digital Currency Group in 2016, and was recently acquired by crypto exchange Bullish, in November 2023 for $75M in an all-cash transaction.

 

CoinDesk, in January 2021, had previously acquired TradeBlock, a market analytics, order management, execution, and compliance automation tool, where it kept the index data (now CoinDesk Indices) and spun out and eventually closed the remainder of the business.

 

CoinDesk reportedly had $50M in revenue in 2022 and before its acquisition by Bullish brought in $24M in Q1-Q3 2023, or an annualized $32M.

 

Similar trends were seen in their web traffic, according to Semrush, CoinDesk had 3.5M monthly visitors in the last month, while it had 13.2M and 4.1M in December 2022 and September 2023, respectively.

 

 

Transaction Parameters

CoinDesk closed on the acquisition of CCData and CryptoCompare for an undisclosed amount.

 

Previous comparable transactions include: Binance | CoinMarketCap (M&A Alert), Lukka | Coinfirm, Amberdata | Genesis Volatility, Blockdaemon | Anyblock Analytics, Morningstar Ventures | CoinFYI

 

 

Strategic Rationale

This acquisition creates CoinDesk’s digital asset data business, which enhances their index business and allows for increased depth of data for their media business.

 

Additionally, CoinDesk will acquire CryptoCompare’s 300,000 active retail users, driving new subscriptions and cross-selling opportunities.

 

 

Architect Partners’ Observations

In an industry that is defined by every transaction being trackable, data matters. CoinDesk operates a media and indices business that both rely heavily on market data of third parties and made the clear decision that owning and controlling access to that dataset is a requirement.

 

As the data and data analytics sub-sector within crypto matures, we  expect similar transactions to play out as groups come to similar conclusions as CoinDesk. Historically, data and data analytics created multibillion dollar companies in traditional finance with groups like Refinitiv, S&P Global, FICO, etc. As the crypto industry matures, the data tracking transactions and flows will become increasingly more important to drive investment decisions.

 

 

Sources 

PitchBook, CCData Press Release, CoinDesk Press Release, CCData Website