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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 March 18 – March 24

Eric F. Risley
March 24, 2024
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Today over 550 crypto brokers and exchanges are operating globally, including roughly 300 centralized exchanges (CEX) and 250 decentralized exchanges (DEX).  However, the power law distribution is alive and well, with 75% of the daily trading volume occurring on the top 10 trading platforms.

 

In spite of overall trading volume concentration, even the largest brokers and exchanges have significant geographic and product weaknesses.  In March 2022, on the eve of revelations of fraud and mismanagement in our sector, Architect Partners published Crypto Exchanges, which highlights many of the strategic dynamics facing brokers and exchanges and the supporting ecosystem.  Needless to say, that dark period delayed the timing of anticipated strategic moves, however, improved conditions today will reinvigorate the corporate strategies that were put on hold.

 

What’s coming?

 

Brokers and exchanges (and other companies who support the trading ecosystem) will use acquisitions as a part of their strategy to fill out the mosaic of product, geographic and regulatory needs. They will find willing sellers.  Initially, it will be crypto native businesses focused.  However, with improved regulatory clarity such as MiCA, traditional financial institutions will begin participating, likely with a sense of urgency.  

 

The emergence of digital assets (tokenized securities) will make the landscape even more complex. Digital assets are how traditional financial institutions “ease” their way into “crypto” as a first step.  Digital assets are also an opportunity for crypto native businesses for further market expansion.  There are many parallels to the emergence of the Internet, online brokers and many other categories of fintech innovation (see Family Ties: The Internet and Crypto).  It’s crystal clear, timing is the only question.

 

This theme is beginning to show itself, even in the early stages of the current recovery.  This week, Canadian broker and exchange, WonderFi, acquired an Australian-based business to stand up OTC trading in Australia.  This is the 8th acquisition by WonderFi which has been actively acquiring competitors.  While relatively small, this is representative of far more to come in the next 24 months.