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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 May 6 – May 12

Glenn Gottlieb
May 15, 2024
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46 Crypto Private Financings Raised ~$176M 

Rolling 3-Month-Average: $265M

Rolling 52-Week Average: $193M

 

This past week was dominated by early-stage investments, and continued an upward trend-line for total financings, but committed capital was again below both the 3-month and 52-week rolling averages.  We will provide an analysis of these trends in an upcoming report.    

 

Arbelos Markets Raises $28M

 

Market professionals in the evolving world of cryptocurrency derivatives should be aware of Arbelos Markets, a recently funded principal trading firm. Founded in the wake of the 2022 market turmoil, Arbelos aims to address a specific need – providing liquidity and hedging solutions for sophisticated investors through crypto options and derivatives, but with an emphasis on transparency. 

 

One of the key issues in 2022 was a lack of transparency hiding true risks from creditors.  Arbelos says they solve this problem with their “transparency engine” that lets clients independently verify, in real time, Arbelos’ risk profile, balance sheet and counterparty exposure.

 

With this as a backdrop, Arbelos Markets announced a $28M seed round consisting of both debt and equity led by Dragonfly Capital, and including Room40 Ventures, Selini Capital and Breed VC, corporate partners FalconX, Circle Ventures, Paxos, P2 Ventures (previously Polygon Ventures), Deribit, Chorus One, StarkWare and Immutable, and angel investors at Aevo, Cega, Talos, Amberdata, and Framework.

 

Arbelos operates as a counterparty to trades initiated by institutional investors.  Along with programmatic trading strategies, the platform allows Arbelos to cater to complex financial needs within the crypto space.

 

Arbelos’ emergence signifies a maturing crypto market. As the asset class gains traction and attracts established financial players, the need for robust infrastructure and professional trading services grows. By bridging the gap between traditional finance and the crypto ecosystem, Arbelos plays a vital role in fostering stability and growth within the decentralized finance (DeFi) and centralized finance (CeFi) landscapes.

 

Since its launch six months ago, Arbelos Markets’ total derivatives trading volume exceeds $25 billion notional across bilateral, on-exchange and on-chain channels.