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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 May 05 – May 11

Todd White
May 6, 2025
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May 5 – May 11 (Published May 15th)

PERSPECTIVES by Todd White

 

25 Crypto Private Financings Raised: $207.2M

Rolling 3-Month-Average: $526.3M

Rolling 52-Week Average: $273.9M

 

Over the past few years, the promise of blockchain-enabled tools to foster deeper, more meaningful community engagement has taken several forms. Conceptually, blockchain initiatives can provide transparency and accountability to community members, incentivize participation, and empower individuals and groups with both ownership and governance capabilities. For example, NFTs can be used as ticketing tools to create lasting connections, enabling fans to receive exclusive content or access and allowing entertainers to maintain relationships beyond specific events.

Gaudiy is a Web3 startup that received a sizeable strategic investment this week from Sony Group Corporation and Bandai Namco Holdings. Gaudiy is focused on transforming the entertainment industry by deepening fan engagement through blockchain, generative AI, and community platforms. Its core product, Gaudiy Fanlink, provides a content-marketing platform that leverages tokens and community tools to promote co-creation and digital engagement in the manga, anime, gaming, and entertainment sectors.

Gaudiy’s technology is designed to help entertainment companies build communities where fans can create, contribute, and be rewarded forming what the company calls “Fan Nations.” Underlying tokenomics help creators to be fairly paid and allow fans to own and trade digital assets related to those creations. Gaudiy has also begun incorporating generative AI to provide new forms of fan interaction and content creation, leveraging cross-sectional fan-activity data to enable personalized engagement.

Sony and Bandai Namco jointly invested ten billion yen (approximately US$70 million) in Gaudiy to form a strategic partnership that integrates Sony’s global streaming platforms and Bandai Namco’s merchandising and IP with Gaudiy’s Web3 and AI fan engagement tools. According to Sony’s press release, revenue from Japan’s content exports now rivals that of other major export industries, such as semiconductors, iron, and steel. Through this partnership to expand Gaudiy’s fan-driven digital communities, Sony and Bandai Namco are making a strategic move to create an integrated entertainment ecosystem that maximizes the value of Japanese IP worldwide through digital technologies that could reshape how fan communities interact with it.

 

Contact ryan@architectpartners.com to schedule a meeting.