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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

Year-End 2023 Crypto M&A and Financing Report

Eric Risley
January 8, 2024
DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT

Download the full report above.

Crypto Mergers & Acquisitions

 

The 2022 hangover continued with announced transaction volume remaining muted, however, improving fundamentals over the past three months promise to reinvigorate M&A activity in 2024.

 

M&A activity in Q4 2023 was up modestly from the prior two quarters but remains 30% below the average pace of 2022.

 

Crypto is not alone, broader technology and financial services M&A have similarly suffered reduced activity levels as well.

 

Traditional financial services companies remained wary of crypto assets, driven by regulatory and compliance uncertainty and persistent legitimacy questions.  However, digital assets, crypto’s cousin are attracting considerable attention.

 

The Brokers & Exchanges subsector and supporting Investing & Trading Infrastructure subsector continue to dominate representing 39% and 31% of Q4 and full year 2023 activity, respectively.

 

Headline transactions of 2023 were Ripple | Metaco, Coinbase | One River, DTCC | Securrency and Deutsche Borse | FundsDLT.

Crypto Private Financings

 

Financing activity continued its softening trend, with both deal count and capital raised falling from 2022 levels, but a late bump in December may portend a shift in the winds.

 

Crypto financing activity has been in a persistent decline since Q1 2022. Overall 2023 deal count fell by 34% from 2022 with capital raised falling by 68%.  Similarly Q4 2023 posted 50% lower proceeds raised and 4% fewer deals compared to the same quarter last year. 

 

But a December uptick bucked the trend, driven by a slight resurgence in later state deals and deal size rose for Q4 across the board for seed, early and late stage deals.

 

Old Guard crypto survivors attracted the largest numbers, including eToro raising $250M as an alternative to its cancelled SPAC, and Swan Bitcoin with $165M across two rounds to support Bitcoin investing and potential lending services.  Interoperable infrastructure projects also attracted substantial support,  such as  Wormhole ($225M) and LayerZero ($120M), both focused on cross-chain communications.  And new products and/or FinTech solutions such as Doshi’s Asian NFT market ($140M), Worldcoin’s digital ID ($115M) and Taurus with $65M for enterprise grade infrastructure.  

Crypto Public Companies

 

Crypto stock prices had an outstanding year driven by positive changes in the crypto environment. 

 

The Architect Public Crypto Market Index© was up 247% over the year. In comparison, the NASDAQ 100 and S&P 500 rose 43% and 24%, respectively.

 

Gains were driven by positive market developments following the 2022 turbulence and subsequent sell-off. 

 

Public crypto company multiples leveled out at typical  NASDAQ technology growth company valuations.  The Index’s Enterprise Value/Revenue in December 2022 was 1.8x and rose to 6.1x in December 2023.  By comparison, the NASDAQ 100 Market Cap/Revenue was 4.8x in Dec. 2022, falling to 4.5x in December 2023. This multiple “reset” occurred despite 2023 index revenue growth of 11%; investors focusing instead on the improving environment.

 

At the sub-sector level, Crypto Investment Platforms returned an average of 165%, which was significantly lowered by Coinshares 1%.  Network Operators average return was 556%, lowered by Bitdeer and Canaan’s 15% and 19% respectively, and Crypto Influenced average return was 99%, primarily driven by MicroStrategy’s 336%.