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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 June 02 – June 08

Todd White
June 11, 2025
DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT

June 02 – June 08 (Published June 11th)

PERSPECTIVES by Todd White

 

29 Crypto Private Financings Raised: $135.4M

Rolling 3-Month-Average: $345.4M

Rolling 52-Week Average: $272.5M

 

We’ve been thinking a lot about payments recently. As highlighted in our latest Architect Insights research on Crypto Payments & Infrastructure: The Strategic Opportunity (link to Part I and Part II), the legacy payment infrastructure suffers from fragmented standards, entrenched participants, and substantial complexity. Blockchain-enabled solutions are poised to solve these issues, and while there is still far to go, adoption is gaining momentum. We remain convinced that the promise of crypto payments will inevitably be realized, but it will take time and further innovation to do so.

 

One area that seems particularly ripe is the management and payment of a globally distributed workforce. The space has evolved significantly over time, driven by numerous technological advancements and shifting workplace dynamics. The early days of telecommuting in the ’70s and ’80s were hampered by slow connectivity and very limited tools for scalability. While technological advancements such as broadband connections, cloud computing, real-time communications, and SaaS tools for collaboration and project management certainly helped, remote work largely remained a niche phenomenon concentrated in tech and consulting roles. This of course changed dramatically during COVID, with remote working becoming the norm and many employers now embracing remote work, expanding international workforces, and leveraging freelancers and remote hubs. Yet technical pain points abound, including asynchronous communication across time zones, inconsistent or outdated hardware and software solutions, and fragmented system integration, accompanied by nearly ubiquitous cybersecurity risks. Logistical challenges are also pervasive for organizations that must navigate different cultural styles, multiple languages, and legal compliance with local tax and labor laws. Finally, the ability to efficiently and compliantly pay remote workers is paramount.

 

Labrys.tech is a London-based company building infrastructure to manage globally distributed teams. Its flagship product, the Axiom platform, is an enterprise management platform that integrates onboarding, compliance, geospatial tracking, and encrypted communications for managing distributed teams in real time. Axiom combines stablecoin payments and blockchain verification with other technologies such as biometrics, geotagging, device verification, and AI-enabled translation that supports 249 languages to address the unique challenges faced by globally dispersed teams in sectors such as humanitarian aid, defense, crisis response, and logistics. Payments made through the platform are fully auditable and programmable, reducing compliance risks and the need for intermediaries, and ensuring the transparency and control over funds crucial for operations in sensitive or regulated environments, or even in sanctioned regions where conventional financial systems are inaccessible or untrusted. The use of blockchain also combines tamper-proof identity verification with an immutable ledger for secure and verifiable records of task completion, payments, and communications.

 

The company secured $20 million in Series A funding on June 3, led by Plural Platform with participation from AlbionVC, Project A Ventures, and others. Labrys’ combination of advanced verification, real-time coordination, and blockchain-powered payments in a single, secure platform could present a core use case that helps propel digital payments into broader adoption.

 

Contact ryan@architectpartners.com to schedule a meeting