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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.

Insights

Week of January 20 – January 26

Todd White
January 29, 2025
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January 20 – January 26 (Published January 28th)

PERSPECTIVES by Todd White

 

32 Crypto Private Financings Raised: $98.2M

Rolling 3-Month-Average: $154.2M

Rolling 52-Week Average: $200.7M

 

The crypto derivatives market has experienced significant growth in recent years, with trading volumes having long surpassed the spot market. According to CCData, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s derivatives trading volume alone reached a record $264 billion this past December. In many ways, this makes sense, as the inherent and well-known volatility creates opportunities for derivatives traders to execute trades, as well as significant demand for hedging.

 

Several factors contribute to this trend, including increased institutional participation in the crypto markets, the ability to use derivatives for leverage and capital efficiency by allowing traders to amplify their exposure to price swings with smaller capital outlays, and risk management and hedging opportunities afforded by derivatives (e.g., using forward contracts to manage downside price volatility).

 

The market is led by some of the biggest names in crypto, such as Binance, GME Group, OKX, and Bybit. Yet there remain opportunities for smaller players to bring solutions to the market. One such example: Singapore-based SignalPlus closed a $11 million Series B this week, led by AppWorks and OKX Ventures, with participation from Avenir Group and HashKey. SignalPlus develops digital asset trading software and infrastructure products that have been implemented across some of the largest exchanges—including Binance, Bybit, Deribit, OKX, and Paradigm—and plans to use their new capital to expand both product offerings and marketing reach.

 

As regulatory clarity starts to take shape, and institutional adoption of crypto assets seems poised to expand, the need for sophisticated trading and market making activities should also grow. Teams that invested the time, energy, and capital during the market downturn to build institutional-grade tools to execute high-touch trading and volatility hedging should now be well poised for this growth.

 

Contact ryan@architectpartners.com to schedule a meeting.