ARCHITECT SUCCESSES

SEE ALL
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.

Snapshots

Week of August 21 – August 28

Michael S. Klena
August 30, 2023
DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT

21 Crypto Private Financings Raised ~$69M

21 Crypto Private Financings Raised ~$69M

Rolling 3-Month-Average: $154M

Rolling 52-Week Average: $222M

 

Segment Overview

Happy end-of-August!  Too early to feel the crisp fall air, but glimpses are starting to show in Halloween candy already on display.  I continue to lobby our firm to buy the 12 foot skeleton as our mascot to bring to every conference we attend, but no takers yet.  Deal counts are at a consistent level for the month but reported capital is still low due to undisclosed amounts and summer slow down.

 

Selected Highlights 

Circle sold an undisclosed stake to Coinbase.  Circle is the 2nd largest stablecoin provider with a 21% market share.  Coinbase is the well known crypto trading firm.    

Why Notable?  These firms have have a commercial relationship, and have now deepened their connection.  This transaction has been well covered by the media, and our view is that this makes sense.  Stablecoins have become a fundamental part of trading infrastructure.  Exchanges often use their own stablecoin, but haven’t been as widely adopted as 3rd party providers like Circle.  WIth PayPal’s recent launch of their own stablecoin, we are seeing the product used beyond the crypto ecosystem to ease friction in traditional finance.  Coinbase is closely watched by everyone, so we expect other firms to take serious look at similar partnerships.

Maple Finance raised $5MM led by BlockTower Capital and Tioga Capital with six additional investors chipping in.  Maple Finance is a DeFi lender, and will use the funds to focus on Asia growth where they claim regulations are clearer.

Why Notable?  Lenders certainly have had a rough go, with the segment littered with debris from the high profile blow ups of Celsius and BlockFi.  With widely varying regional regulatory frameworks, the slowdown in trading, and general crypto headwinds, lenders are searching for sustainable growth.  That Maple FInance was able to raise in a beaten down segment in a slow market shows deals can still get done with tempered expectations.

 

Nodal Power raised $13MM from Spacestation Investments.  Nodal Power is a startup using landfill emissions to power bitcoin mining.

Why Notable?  Bitcoin mining has had a continual push to find green energy sources.  Harnessing methane emissions from landfills is a new wrinkle for me, although we have seen other firms use similar flaring capture from oil production.  

 

Patterns  

Infrastructure continues to be the main segment attracting capital, with a mix of DeFi and CeFi technologies.  

 

Conferences  

We will be at Permissionless (Sept. 11-13); Singapore Digital Asset Week + Token 2049 (Sept. 10-21); and Mainnet (Sept. 20-23).  If you will be there, let’s schedule time to connect.