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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 M&A Snapshot

Week of August 21 – August 27

Peter B. Stoneberg
August 27, 2023
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OANDA, a global foreign exchange (FX) and CFD broker, announced on August 22, 2023 that it has acquired a majority interest in Coinpass, a UK-based cryptocurrency exchange. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

 

Coinpass was founded in 2018 and is registered with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). It offers a variety of proprietary on-ramp and trading capabilities. The exchange is reported to have over 100,000 registered users and has processed over £1 billion in trading volume. OANDA said that the acquisition of Coinpass will allow it to expand its offering in the cryptocurrency market. The company currently offers CFD trading in four cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ether, and Litecoin. The acquisition of Coinpass is the latest in a series of moves by OANDA to expand its presence in the cryptocurrency market. In 2022, the company launched a cryptocurrency research team and a cryptocurrency trading academy. The acquisition of Coinpass is also a sign of the growing interest in cryptocurrencies by traditional financial institutions. OANDA is not the only FX broker that has made a move into the cryptocurrency market. In recent months, other FX brokers such as IG Group and Saxo Bank have also announced plans to offer cryptocurrency trading.

 

B2C2, a crypto liquidity provider, has acquired Woorton, a European market maker and over-the-counter (OTC) trading firm. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

 

The acquisition of Woorton will allow B2C2 to expand its presence in the European market and offer its institutional clients a wider range of services. B2C2 will also benefit from Woorton’s expertise in digital asset market making and OTC trading, as well as its PSAN (prestataires de services sur actifs numériques) License, regulated by the AMF (Autorité des Marchés Financiers), which allows B2C2 to operate inside the EU. The acquisition of Woorton is a significant step for B2C2 as it continues to expand its global reach. The European market is a key target for B2C2, and the acquisition of Woorton will help the company to better serve its institutional clients in this region. The acquisition is also a sign of the growing consolidation in the cryptocurrency industry and the importance of country licenses as regulation becomes more widespread and stringent.   Established companies are finding that it is faster and more certain to acquire a company with licenses than to go through the time and effort to acquire those licenses themselves. As the industry matures, we are likely to see more acquisitions of this kind as companies seek to expand their geographic reach and offerings.

 

BIGG Digital Assets Inc. (BIGG), a Canadian company that invests in products and companies that support crypto, has agreed to acquire TerraZero Technologies Inc. (TerraZero), a Metaverse development group and Web3 technology company.  

 

The acquisition will allow BIGG to expand its presence in the Web3 market. TerraZero has a track record of developing Web3 projects for Fortune 500 brands that include PwC, Miller Lite and Atlantic Records. Total consideration is 62 million shares of BIGG, valued at approximately $20M.  This represents a healthy revenue multiple as TerraZero has run-rate revenue of approximately $3M per year, and is showing 160% year over year growth.  The transaction is expected to close in September 2023 and is subject to 66⅔% of TerraZero shareholders voting in approval of the transaction.  TerraZero shareholders will own approximately 20% of the combined company when the transaction closes.