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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 September 9 – September 15

Glenn Gottlieb
September 18, 2024
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37 Crypto Private Financings Raised ~$207M 

Rolling 3-Month-Average: $174M

Rolling 52-Week Average: $198M

 

Huma Finance has emerged as a critical player in the world of payment financing with the announcement of its $38 million funding round led by Distributed Capital with participation by Folius Ventures, the Stellar Development Foundation, TIBAS Ventures, and the CVC arm of Isbank.  A portion of the raise came as investments in high-yield real world assets on the platform. The investment in Huma underscores the opportunity for Huma’s approach to address inefficiencies in payment financing.

 

Huma’s Payment Financing (PayFi) network aims to fulfill growing liquidity requirements for payment financing.  Huma’s solution could bring trillions of dollars of real-world payment volume onto blockchains and stablecoins enhancing the speed and efficiency of transactions, as well as opening new possibilities for businesses that were previously underserved by conventional banking systems.

 

Huma and Arf merged earlier this year, solidifying its consolidated position as a leader in the PayFi space. Together, they have already facilitated over $1.8 billion in payment financing transactions and are projected to facilitate over $10 billion next year. This rapid growth demonstrates both the need and effectiveness of Huma’s services, especially with cross-border payments and remittances.

 

Huma’s approach – tokenizing real-world assets (RWAs) and leveraging blockchain technology –  enables a superior level of transparency and efficiency.  By providing on-demand USDC-based working capital loans and facilitating real-time settlements for cross-border transactions, Huma is effectively removing the overhead of pre-funded accounts.

 

Huma’s commitment to building an open, modular, and decentralized network enables greater accessibility via interoperable solutions across various participants in the financial ecosystem.  

 

Huma is poised to play a crucial role in shaping the future of payment financing and driving the adoption of blockchain technology in real-world financial applications.

 

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Meet Architect Partners at these upcoming events:

 

  • Token2049 (Ongoing)
  • Permissionless (Oct 9 – Oct 12)
  • Money2020 (Oct 27 – Oct 30)

 

Contact ryan@architectpartners.com to schedule a meeting.