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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 September 4 – 10

Peter B. Stoneberg
September 10, 2023
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Last week was a slow week in crypto M&A, but September is starting with a bang with 4 deals already announced in this shortened US holiday week.

 

Ripple Acquires Fortress Trust to Expand Regulatory Compliance Capabilities Ripple, a leader in enterprise blockchain and crypto infrastructure, has agreed to acquire Fortress Trust, a Nevada-based financial institution that provides licensed Web3 financial, regulatory, and technology infrastructure. The acquisition will help Ripple expand its regulatory compliance capabilities and offer a wider range of Web3 products and services to its customers. Fortress Trust provides regulatory-compliant solutions to the blockchain industry including a Nevada Trust license, which is one of the most stringent regulatory frameworks in the United States. So Ripple now has a NY BitLicense, 30 US Money Transmitter Licenses and a Payment license from Singapore’s central bank. Ripple has a strong regulatory footprint in the USA, but to achieve their stated goal of “becoming the one-stop shop for enterprises looking to convert, store, and move value on blockchain around the world” they may need to acquire another company with global licenses to expand its international reach. Earlier this year Ripple also acquired Metaco, a crypto custody provider in a $250M deal. Terms were not disclosed and the deal is subject to further due diligence and regulatory approvals.

 

In another payments-related deal, payments company Clear Junction has acquired UK-based cryptoasset firm Altalix for an undisclosed value which is expected to close in Q4 2023. The acquisition will give Clear Junction access to Altalix’s fiat-to-crypto gateway solutions and its FCA registration. Clear Junction said that the acquisition is not an attempt to become an exchange or trade in digital assets, but rather give them a competitive edge by having both a cryptoasset registration and an electronic money institution (EMI) license. This should allow the combined company the ability to provide both fiat and crypto correspondent account services to regulated institutions.

 

₿trust, a nonprofit organization funded by Jack Dorsey, has acquired Qala, an organization dedicated to training Bitcoin and Lightning Network engineers in Africa. The acquisition will help ₿trust scale up its programs in Africa and drive the development of Bitcoin open-source engineers from across the Global South. Qala has built one of the biggest online communities of Bitcoin developers in Africa, spanning over 42 countries. Qala CEO Femi Longe and program manager Stephanie Titcombe will join ₿trust as program leads at ₿trust Builders.

 

It was also announced that GMO Media Inc. acquired Blockchain Game Info from PLAYTHINK, Inc.  No further details are available at this time.