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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

Kasikornbank Acquires Satang Crypto Exchange

Elliot Chun
November 8, 2023
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Thailand’s Kasikornbank Acquires 97% of Satang Crypto Exchange For $102.8M

Transaction Overview

On October 29, 2023, Thailand’s Kasikorn Bank announced it acquired 97% of the shares of the cryptocurrency trading platform Satang Corporation for $102.8M (3.705B Thai Baht). 

 

Target: Satang Crypto Exchange

Satang Crypto Exchange offers trading for 45 unique cryptocurrencies, HSM-secured custody, staking, and a digital payment platform for utilities and public transportation in Thailand. 

 

Satang holds a Thailand Digital Asset Business License and according to the 2022 trading volume is one of the four largest crypto exchanges in Thailand. In CY2022, Satang’s revenues were $1.7M, and has not disclosed any outside capital raised. Satang’s closest competitors include Bitkub, Bybit, OKX, eToro, Zipmex, and Bitazza. 

 

The company was founded in 2017 in Thailand by Poramin Insom, CEO, and has around 50 employees. 

 

Buyer: Kasikornbank

Kasikorn Bank is the 2nd largest bank in Thailand with roughly 16% market share as of June 2023. Kasikorn focuses primarily on individuals, with services including retail banking, corporate banking, investment banking, and digital banking. 

 

Kasikorn has been interested in developing its digital asset business for the past two years and set a goal to capture 20% of the cryptocurrency market share in Thailand by the year 2024. To achieve this goal, Kasikorn Bank has been opening new digital asset subsidiaries. In March 2022, Kasikorn registered Orbix Custodian as its new crypto custody unit. Since then, it has opened Orbix Invest as fund management and Orbix Technology to develop blockchain infrastructure. 

 

In September, Kasikorn announced its $100M Web3, FinTech, and AI fund called Kasikorn X Venture Capital (KXVC).

 

Transaction Parameters

Kasikornbank acquired 97% of the shares in Satang for $102.8M with the other 3% of shares still held by Binance. Satang will be rebranded as Orbix. Orbix will include Kasikornbank’s three crypto divisions, Orbix Custodian, Orbix Invest, and Orbix Technology.

 

Comparable M&A transactions in the crypto exchange industry include Liquid Group | FTX (ND), Bitex | Huobi (ND), Amber Group | DeCurret, Siam Commercial Bank | Bitkub ($1.05B), DHS Consulting | Allentro ($575M), Exegy | Vela, and SBI Financial Services | B2C2

 

Strategic Rationale

Kasikornbank made a clear promise to investors that they would capture 20% of the crypto market share in Thailand by 2024. The simplest and most effective way to accomplish this is by acquiring a leading crypto exchange as they have done here. Kasikorn now owns a leading local exchange with requisite licenses demonstrating their strong digital asset strategy in full action. 

 

Architect Partners’ Observations

Our thesis is simple: the crypto industry will see an increase in bridge M&A transactions (non-crypto companies acquiring a crypto company). 

 

Crypto assets continue their transition from an emerging asset class to a global asset class. Servicing crypto assets, and their owners, has a different set of requirements compared to other traditional asset classes. 

 

Every company in a traditional industry, especially financial services, will have or has already undergone an internal assessment of how they plan to adopt crypto assets. This assessment inevitably includes a Buy vs. Build. vs. Partner vs. Invest.

 

Another theme we see here is regulation clarity driving action. Thailand has specific regulations around cryptocurrency. This gives comfort to TradeFi institutions to become involved since the rules are (relatively) clear.  

 

Exchanges have been the primary onramp into the industry and have the largest number of retail crypto holders. Acquiring an exchange gives immediate scale and can deepen retail relationships into the much-desired “cross-sell” with its in-house products. 

 

Geographically, Thailand ranks in Chainalysis’ Top 10 Countries Adopting Crypto Report. In fact, Southeast Asia has 4 countries in the top 10 with Asia representing 7 of the top 11. These data points support the narrative that crypto is a global asset class with Asia playing a leading role. We expect Bridge M&A activity in the Asia region to increase in 2024 as Financial Services companies execute their “buy” strategies.

 

The valuation of the deal is a bit of a head-scratcher, and we believe the stated price includes significant, undisclosed earn-out based on performance to achieve it. We will update this alert once we uncover more details on this transaction. 

 

Sources 

PitchBook, Satang Financial Statements, Satang Website