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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
January 5, 2023
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News on Macro Economic Data

 

2024 is looking to be a very interesting year.   The predicted recession of 2023 never materialized, and most economists are optimistic for a soft landing in 2024.  With that in mind, the Fed suggested 3 interest rate cuts during the year.    The market is predicting 6-7 cuts during 2024.  A requirement for 6-7 cuts this year doesn’t seem like a vote of confidence regarding economic health in 2024.  A recession has always followed a tightening of the money supply, and leading indicators have been declining for 18 months.   Thus, it will be interesting to follow, as it’s also an election year.   Two key topics for today:  

 

The Fed’s balance sheet doubled to $8T since 2020 which may become a real issue in 2024.   The Treasury Department has put out their schedule showing a reduction in bond auctions.   The most recent auctions have not gone very well.   The Fed, China, and Japan are not buying bonds so yields most likely will have to increase to attract investors driving up long-term interest rates.   The Treasury Dept seems instead to be focused on T- bills bringing up issues that may hinder the economy.  

 

The December jobs report came in much stronger than expected at 216K jobs.  However, of those jobs 52K were government, 74K were private education and Health Services, and 57K were leisure, hospitality, and retail.   The labor force participation rate declined by 683K workers, and multiple job holders continues to rise.   Additionally, The Wall Street Journal’s analysis showed that recent job growth trend has been government, health care and social services which means job creation has mostly supported government spending on social services and not jobs that boost the economy.  

 

Crypto Public Company Activity

 

One of the most watched, and arguably the most exciting milestone for Bitcoin in early 2024 is the possible approval of one or more Bitcoin spot ETFs.   It represents true institutional acceptance.   Aside from the hype, many analysts believe the price of Bitcoin will go higher due to the increased demand generated by ETFs.

 

This past Wednesday the price of Bitcoin fell more than 10% when Matrixport posted a seemingly very definitive report that Bitcoin spot ETFs, with a reported regulatory approval date of January 10, were ultimately not going to receive approval by the SEC. 

 

The overall reaction to the report, including the 10% drop in the price of Bitcoin, prompted Jhan Wu, Chairman of Bitmain and Matrixport, to defend the analyst and the freedom of Matrixport’s analysts to state their opinions as they see the market.   He also denied their report was responsible for the drop in Bitcoin pricing.

 

Independent of the Matrixport analyst’s view, Grayscale, ARK, and VanEck have received approval for their spot Bitcoin ETFs to trade on their exchange of choice along with approved ticker symbols.  These moves do not mean SEC approval of the spot ETFs, but are a key step towards trading once they are approved.  

 

The ETF watch goes on.