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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

Laser Digital Acquires Elysium Technology Group

Arjun Mehra & Michael Klena
June 30, 2023
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Laser Digital Acquires Elysium Technology Group for an undisclosed amount.

Transaction Overview

On June 29th, 2023 Laser Digital announced the acquisition of the post-trade solutions provider for FX & digital assets, Elysium Technology Group. 

 

Target: Elysium Technology Group

Elysium Technology Group provides post-trade solutions for the FX & digital asset industries. Elysium has three core products, including MatchHub, a centralized trading hub using connective software to settle, match, reconcile, and net trades. MatchHub also offers developer tool kits, allowing users to configure the software to their needs. Mission Control is a live, cloud-based dashboard for screening and monitoring digital assets & FX positions with connectivity to over 100 exchanges. The firm also has an enterprise database management platform, RiskDB, that focuses on smoothing post-trade workflows and reducing processing costs. As of 2019, Elysium was processing $30B of trading volume per day for FX assets. 

 

Elysium’s closest competitors include other infrastructure providers in the trade lifecycle for FX and digital assets, such as Osttra, TradeNeXus, GlobalLink, LSEG’s SwapAgent, LCX, CrossTower, BlockFills, KeyRock, Etana, and Paxos’ itBit. 

 

The company was founded in 2007 in Stamford, Connecticut by Chairman Andy Siciliano, Managing Director Ed Mount, and CTO Mark Rosenfeld, Elysium currently has over 20 employees, with offices in Connecticut, Virginia, and Illinois. Elysium was originally formed in 2002 as a private trading firm, growing up to $230M AUM, before the group pivoted into technology solutions in 2007. The firm has no disclosed capital raised to date. 

 

Buyer: Laser Digital 

Laser Digital is the digital asset-focused arm of Nomura, a large Japanese financial institution with $17B in TTM revenue and a $12B market capitalization. Laser Digital offers asset management, liquidity, and market-making solutions to their digital asset clients. In addition, the firm makes venture investments in digital asset-related companies. Laser Digital’s trading solutions (liquidity and market-making) are focused on institutional customers, such as pensions, hedge funds, and family offices.

 

Laser Digital was launched in September 2022 and is led by CEO Jez Mohideen, who previously ran Global Markets EMEA at Nomura, and Executive Chairman Steve Ashley, who was previously the Global Head of the Wholesale Division at Nomura. The firm currently has an estimated 70 employees and is based in Zurich, Switzerland. 

 

This is the first acquisition by Laser Digital, although the group has made minority investments in two digital asset-related firms. 

 

Transaction Parameters

Laser Digital acquired Elysium Technology Group for an undisclosed amount. Elysium will operate as a subsidiary and affiliate of Laser Digital under the name of Elysium LD Technology, Inc. The transaction is expected to close imminently. 

 

Comparable crypto trading infrastructure transactions include Bakkt | Apex Crypto ($200M M&A Alert) Coinbase | FairX ($275M M&A Alert), FTX | Bitvo (ND M&A Alert), Blockchain.com | Altonomy ($250M M&A Alert), Amber Group | DeCurret (ND), DHS Consulting | Allentro ($575M ), Exegy | Vela (ND), and SBI Financial Services | B2C2 (ND).

 

Strategic Rationale

This is a significant announcement that marks Laser Digital’s commitment to FX and digital assets and emphasizes the importance of owning post-trade functionality that can facilitate multiple asset classes. Laser Digital is acquiring a platform that provides “air traffic control” for its capital markets business that includes trade settlement, real-time position reporting, and a securities database with digital asset symbology.

 

As the roles market participants play in digital asset markets continue to evolve (see the separation of exchanges, brokers, and custodians), Laser Digital is positioned as a key FX and digital asset post-trade infrastructure provider with traditional financial institution roots, which is the counterparty profile that institutions want to do business with.

 

Finally, institutional-grade, cross-asset functionality will drive client decision-making, as the demand to participate in digital assets increases. 

 

Architect Partners’ Observations

The digital asset post-trade process has not been elegantly solved.  Equities have dominant clearinghouses like DTCC to make the process efficient and the risk well-managed.  Digital asset settlement looks like FX settlement where it is peer-to-peer with its associated higher risk of failure.  We are seeing more firms try to solve this, like the newly announced BitGo Go Network.  Many are offered by a custodian allowing pre-trade credit and net settlement for assets that are under custody. Elysium bridges directly to FX and futures so takes it a step further by allowing cross-asset trade settlement.  

 

All of these settlement solutions need volume and scale.  The winner will not necessarily be the best technology, but the one that can sign up participants and scale the quickest. We see firms continuing to attract M&A interest and capital into this specialized but critical segment.

 

Sources 

PitchBook, Elysium Website, Laser Digital Website, Press Release