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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 July 1 – July 7

Glenn Gottlieb
July 10, 2024
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43 Crypto Private Financings Raised ~$203M 

Rolling 3-Month-Average: $253M

Rolling 52-Week Average: $195M

 

Deal count was active this past week with 43 financings which were dominated by seed stage investments.   However, without a single $85M investment, committed capital remains muted with only $118M invested. 

 

AI has experienced some supersized funding announcements, including a few very large seed rounds. The latest example is open-source AI platform Sentient’s $85M seed round.   Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Pantera, and Framework Ventures co-led the investment with participation from Robot Ventures, Delphi, Republic, and Arrington Capital.

 

We are big believers in the value and opportunity associated with the intersection of blockchain technology and AI.  One of the primary missions of Sentient is to democratize AI by building an open platform for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) development. This approach aims to ensure that the benefits of AI are distributed equitably, addressing the risks posed by the concentration of AI power in a few centralized entities like Google and Meta.

 

Sentient’s integration with blockchain technology, specifically through the Polygon network, presents a unique opportunity for innovation at the intersection of AI and blockchain. This integration is expected to enhance the AI ecosystem by incorporating AI-native cryptography directly into AI models, which can help solve the incentive problem in open-source AI development. By enabling effective monetization of open-source AI, Sentient aims to foster a collaborative environment where researchers, developers, and users can contribute to and benefit from AI advancements.

 

By combining open-source principles with blockchain technology, a novel reward system, and decentralized infrastructure, Sentient is creating a unique ecosystem that encourages collaboration, transparency, and fair compensation in AI development. This approach aims to democratize AI advancement and ensure that its benefits are more widely distributed.

 

Read our latest report:   Q2 2024 Crypto M&A and Financing Report – Architect Partners