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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 June 16 – June 22

Eric F. Risley
June 22, 2025
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June 16th – June 22nd

PERSPECTIVES by Eric F. Risley 

 

Crypto payments are one of the most promising real-world use cases for crypto. Over the past several weeks, we have published the first three parts of Crypto Payments and Infrastructure: Part I: Why Crypto Payments?, Part II: Momentum Is Building, and Part III: Market Map. This coming week, we will turn to Part IV: Capital and M&A.

 

Stablecoins have long served as a bridge between the fiat and crypto worlds, primarily used for crypto trading. More recently, stablecoins have emerged as a preferred real-world payment asset used by both individuals and businesses. These payments often—though not always—cross borders. Architect Partners estimates that real-world transactions account for only 1.4% to 4.2% of stablecoin trading volume but are growing rapidly.

 

Stablecoin use continues to be dominated by crypto trading, as the data clearly shows. In calendar year 2024, the implied average holding period for USDT and USDC was 37 and 109 hours, respectively. This is calculated using the velocity of each asset, as described in the table to the right. In essence, crypto investors are rapidly exchanging stablecoins for a variety of other crypto assets as part of their trading strategies.

 

Stablecoin-based real-world payments may follow different dynamics, which will be important to monitor closely. Will payers and payees quickly convert their stablecoin holdings into fiat currency, or will they choose to hold a stablecoin balance? If the former, current velocity levels may remain unchanged—or even increase. If the latter, this would suggest lower velocity and higher aggregate outstanding stablecoin balances.

 

Time will tell, but it’s fascinating to compare stablecoin velocity with that of the most widely used fiat currency: the US Dollar. Today, on average, a US Dollar changes hands once every 228 days (measured using M1—cash and checking account bank deposits).

 

The current stablecoin revenue model is directly correlated to the size of invested collateral. Both demand (use cases) and velocity are critical factors to better understand as crypto payments—whether using stablecoins or other crypto assets—continue to evolve.

 

All of this falls under the broader question of how crypto payments will develop and the strategies required to build successful revenue and business models.