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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.

Crypto Public Companies Snapshot

Crypto Public Companies Snapshot

Glenn Gottlieb
November 17, 2023
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News on Macro Economic Data

The economy received good news this week, as both CPI and PPI numbers came in better than expected.   CPI was up year over year by 3.2% and down 0.5% month over month.   The majority of the reduction can be attributed to the reduction in energy costs.   Core inflation (CPI less food and energy) fell to 4% year over year, and just 0.2% month over month.   In addition, housing starts surprised to the upside of 1.9% month over month instead of the expected decline.  Housing permits were also better than expected at 1.1%.

 

There is still caution as major retailers provided cautious guidance for Q4, and major banks are projecting a slowdown in 2024.  Data suggesting a slowdown continues to include: total inflation since January 21, 2021, is slightly above 17% while real wages have declined 4% over the same period, consumer debt defaults are rising, and the full effects of the Fed raises have yet to be felt.  

 

Crypto Public Company Activity

 

“The Future Will Be Tokenized” –   Forbes

 

Many believe that tokenization is the future, and this digital future will revolutionize financial markets, along with substantial positive effects in other markets.   The integration of tokenization and blockchain will lead to innovative financial solutions, marketplaces, and drive efficiency and liquidity for markets.   There are still many technical and regulatory hurdles, but innovative companies are partnering with large financial institutions to aggressively drive this future forward.  Two exciting announcements from this week include:

 

  • JPM and Apollo announced a POC to tokenize Apollo’s funds in collaboration with Axelar, Oasis Pro, and Provenance Blockchain.  The goal is to manage large-scale client portfolios, execute trades, and provide automated portfolio management of tokenized assets.  

 

  • Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced multiple financial industry partners to develop comprehensive infrastructure and capabilities to expand and scale the opportunities for tokenization and digital assets across networks and borders.  The partners have created five POCs representing the entire value chain for capital markets– listing, distribution, trading, settlement, and servicing.  MAS’ announced partners include  Citi, T Rowe Price, Fidelity, BNY Mellon, OCBC, Ant International, Franklin Templeton, JP Morgan, and Apollo. 

 

Recent weeks have been positive for public markets, especially given the positive economic news over the past couple of weeks.   As a result, BTC has been up 27% over the past month providing a positive influence on public crypto companies, with the Architect Partners’ index up 30% over the same period.