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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

Ryan McCulloch
April 25, 2025
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There will be, once the de-SPAC closes, a new Architect Public Company Index constituent with Twenty One, a “Bitcoin-native” company supported by Tether, SoftBank, and Cantor.

 

With their announced $3.6B valuation, Twenty One immediately ranks in the top 5 crypto-native constituents in our Index.

 

The company will initially launch with a treasury of 42,000 Bitcoin (worth approximately $4.0B based on today’s Bitcoin price) and plans to become “a singular vehicle for Bitcoin exposure, pro-Bitcoin advocacy, and Bitcoin-focused content and media with plans to explore future expansion into Bitcoin-native financial products.”

 

What does that mean exactly? That’s to be determined, and our initial observations include: 1) We appreciate top-tier groups of TradFi and crypto banding together to form new ventures led by proven innovators like Jack Mallers; 2) The $4B BTC on the balance sheet sets a “floor” valuation while simultaneously providing an immediate BTC treasury strategy and a war chest to fund business expansion; 3) There are intentions of building BTC-native products and services that will generate BTC-denominated revenue with BTC-denominated metrics — Bitcoin Per Share (BPS) and Bitcoin Return Rate (BRR).

 

In the press release, the company valued itself at $3.6B based on an $85K Bitcoin price, which means they have attributed $0 enterprise value to the company.

 

You may look at this business model and see similarities to Michael Saylor’s Strategy (Nasdaq: MSTR), and you would be right. The stark difference is the value per Bitcoin. MicroStrategy has 538,200 Bitcoin worth about $51B, but the company trades at a $97B market capitalization. In the case of Twenty One, they are pricing the company to trade 1-to-1 with their Bitcoin holdings. Despite this, the SPAC has increased in value by 250% since announcement, putting their market value-to-Bitcoin ratio at 3.5x, which now means they trade at a higher premium over Bitcoin than Strategy.

 

While the future model of Twenty One remains to be proven, the clear model today is a Bitcoin treasury company. We will see how they compete with or take market share away from Strategy.