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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
February 9, 2024
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News on Macro Economic Data

Unlike almost any other time, Fed watching is driving market activity.  To that end, Fed Chair Powell said that any rate cuts will come later this year, and are “not likely” to occur in March as the market expected.   Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin, a voting member, said the Fed has time to be patient regarding rate cuts.  The market was expecting six cuts this year, but with these comments, the prospects of that are fading rapidly. The Fed signaled three rate cuts this year.  However, any occurring late this year could be seen as political in this election year. 

 

Despite some concerns about the economy, there is still a lot of liquidity, mostly due to government spending.  Some economists feel this spending is buoying the economy and markets right now, but also can help maintain stubborn inflation.    

 

Next week the CPI and PPI numbers come out, which will provide greater insight into trends. 

 

Crypto Public Company Activity

Snapshots from this past week:

 

Blackrock or MicroStrategy?:  MicroStrategy acquired another 850 BTC for $37.2M in January, raising its holdings to 190,000 BTC.  Michael Saylor believes BTC is the safest long-term investment and inflation hedge.   MicroStrategy has an astounding 312 PE Ratio, with the 190,000 BTC representing about 80% of MicroStrategy’s market cap.   BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust is now a top 5 ETF based on 2024 inflows of $3.2B.

 

NBA Voyager Lawsuit:   Voyager investors filed a lawsuit against the NBA alleging it acted in a “grossly negligent” fashion by approving a marketing deal between Voyager and Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks.   The lawsuit alleges the NBA promoted Voyager’s “unregistered securities”, as well as promoting multiple crypto companies through sponsorships and naming rights despite the risks associated with crypto.

 

Baakt:  On February 7, Bakkt filed an amendment to its Q3 2023 10Q that raised questions about Bakkt being a going concern.   In a press release on Feb 8, Bakkt wrote, “In response to questions, management remains confident about our business and will continue to focus on delivering for our clients, making progress on our primary business objectives, and working efficiently to scale our business and move toward profitability. We plan to share more during our earnings announcement later this quarter”.