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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 28 – September 3

Peter B. Stoneberg
September 3, 2023
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Crypto M&A activity in Q3 2023: A slowdown, but with some notable deals

Summary

The crypto M&A market has slowed down in the first two months of Q3 2023, with only 17 acquisitions announced, compared to 68 in Q3 2022 and 33 in Q2 2023. However, there were still some notable deals, including:

 

  • OANDA acquired CoinPass, an FCA-registered cryptocurrency exchange.

 

  • Securitize acquired OnRamp Invest, a digital asset management platform focused on RIAs.

 

  • Deutsche Börse acquired FundsDLT, a blockchain-based platform for fund distribution.

 

  • WonderFi acquired both Coinsquare and CoinSmart, two Canadian crypto exchanges with 1.6M users.

 

  • Laser Digital acquired Elysium Technologies, a post-trade solutions provider for FX and digital assets.

 

Reasons for the slowdown

The slowdown in the crypto M&A market can be attributed to a number of factors, including:

 

  • The ongoing war in Ukraine, the fear of inflation and the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes have created a risk-off environment, which has made investors less willing to invest in risky assets, including crypto companies

 

  • The high-profile failures of crypto companies like FTX, Celsius, and 3 Arrows Capital have shaken investor confidence in the industry.

 

  • The regulatory status of cryptocurrencies in the USA is unclear, which is creating uncertainty for businesses and investors.  The industry needs clear regulations so that businesses can operate and investors can make informed decisions.

 

Positive developments

Despite the slowdown, there are a number of positive developments that could drive the crypto M&A market in the coming months. These include:

 

  • Grayscale’s Supreme Court win against the SEC, which could pave the way for more spot Bitcoin ETFs to be approved.

 

  • The launch of PayPal’s stablecoin for payments, which is a major milestone to enable the adoption of crypto by mainstream consumers.

 

  • X, formerly Twitter, has obtained money transmitter licenses in seven U.S. states, signaling Elon Musk’s grand plan to enable blockchain-based payments to their 400 million global users.

 

Overall outlook

Overall, the crypto M&A market is likely to remain active in the coming months, albeit at a slower pace than in previous years. The key drivers of the market will be the continued growth of the crypto industry and the establishment of additional real-world use cases for crypto and blockchain.