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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.

Financing

Week of February 24 – March 02

Todd White
March 05, 2025
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February 24 – March 02 (Published March 5th)

PERSPECTIVES by Todd White

 

31 Crypto Private Financings Raised: $220.1M

Rolling 3-Month-Average: $203.6M

Rolling 52-Week Average: $209.2M

 

In many ways, 2024 was the year that institutional investors showed up in the crypto investment scene. Led by the much-publicized wave of Bitcoin ETFs, crypto AUM increased substantially with many institutional investors making significant allocations to the sector. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) experienced the most significant increases to become one of the fastest-growing ETPs in history, reaching over $10 billion in AUM in just 51 days, growing nearly to $54 billion, making it the largest Bitcoin fund globally. Many others also achieved significant growth, including Bitwise Asset Management, a crypto-specialist manager that increased its AUM by more than tenfold during the year, and with over $12B in client assets by February 2025.

 

There are of course various niches where different asset managers play. So-called crypto hedge funds, such as Multicoin, Blocktower, and dChained, offer actively managed funds to seek returns through trading. Crypto venture funds focus on long-term growth potential by providing funding and support for early-stage blockchain and crypto projects. Examples include Blockchain Capital, Pantera and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)’s crypto fund. Crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) provide indirect exposure to crypto through liquid vehicles traded on traditional stock exchanges. BlackRock’s IBIT is the largest, but the ETF class of 2024 includes notable offerings from Fidelity, ARK, VanEck and numerous others.

 

Index funds, on the other hand, offer a way to invest in a basket of positions by passively tracking cryptocurrency indices for diversified market exposure, generally with lower fees compared to actively managed products. Bitwise has established itself as one of the largest crypto index fund managers, as part of a broad suite of 32 investment solutions that include yield and alpha strategies, multi-strategy solutions, separately managed accounts, on-chain staking, and Bitcoin ETPs, in addition to its leading index funds.

 

Bitwise completed a $70 million equity raise at the end of February that was led by Electric Capital, with participation from notable investors such as MassMutual, Highland Capital, and MIT Investment Management Company. Proceeds from this funding round will be used to bolster their balance sheet for greater stability and growth potential, expanding investment capabilities to develop new products and solutions, strengthen research capabilities, investor education initiatives, and client service infrastructure, and to grow their team.

 

The industry and the managers that invest within it continue to evolve rapidly. Different firms are taking different approaches, from traditional finance giants entering the space to crypto-native firms expanding their offerings. BlackRock, for example, has leveraged its institutional reputation to quickly gain significant market share in Bitcoin ETFs. Bitwise on the other hand is a crypto-native manager that offers a broad range of 32 products. These include their core focus on “Beta Solutions” of crypto index funds, Bitcoin and ETH ETP’s (exchange traded products) and other passive vehicles that track assets or markets; “Alpha Solutions” that include actively managed yield strategies, and separately managed accounts with tailored mandates; and “trendwise” strategies that rotate between crypto and U.S. Treasuries based on market trends, and pure “on-chain” solutions such as staking services, onchain yield strategies and blockchain network indices.

 

The race is on for products and market share. If the crypto sector experiences the type of growth and adoption that we anticipate (and hope for!), there will be ample room for multiple managers with diverse strategies.

 

Contact ryan@architectpartners.com to schedule a meeting.