The main recent example of why comes from the $55 million in fresh funding raised by Ohio-based CHAMP Titles, now active in at least seven states, with at least 35 million people having access to the company’s tools.
The Series D funding round means that the company, which focuses on such areas as digital titles and DMV tech, has raised more than $100 million since its launch in 2018.
According to CEO Shane Bigelow, 2025 was “one of the fastest years of change in our space,” and for this year, he expects nothing less than “big growth,” he told Government Technology.
DMVs, long a source of civic derision and outright dread, are actually experiencing improvements in this post-COVID-19 age, as state governments continue the work of bringing more services online and using digital tools to improve efficiency.
That’s unlikely to change the reputations of DMVs any time soon — nor immediately solve the bottlenecks, delays and frustrations at driver’s license offices — but CHAMP is betting it can help with those changes.
For instance, the company is part of a $54 million effort in Louisiana to replace legacy technology with updated tools that don’t break down as often as the old systems.
The state expects the company to “help fix the problems we know too well — long lines, slow processing and fraud,” according to Gov. Jeff Landry.
States are finding it harder to go it alone when it comes to such work, according to Bigelow.
“The complexity of technology is forcing agencies to rely on outside vendors to develop the technologies,” he said.
Adding to the complexity is the makeup of the automotive world — not just DMVs but fleet managers, dealers, buyers and insurance companies. It’s a mix of public- and private-sector activities and interests, and operating that ecosystem and those workflows on what he called obsolete, 15-year technology is just begging for trouble, at least in Bigelow’s view.
The rise of “interstate commerce in the vehicle world” also works in favor of the company’s prospects, he said. “That is where a lot of our attention is, looking ahead.”
The auto industry still hasn’t fully recovered from COVID-19 disruptions, and the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump also threaten to drive up costs, including via the automotive supply chain.
That all translates into higher costs for consumers, who — already used to e-commerce for countless retail goods — could take to more online shopping and price comparisons when it comes to cars and trucks.
That particular online market is relatively tiny but poised for growth, at least according to a recent report from ConsumerAffairs, research that echoes other findings.
The outlet says that the global online car buying market will hit $722.8 billion by 2030, up 200 percent from 2020.
Even so, not more than 3 percent of consumers have bought a vehicle online — though 29 percent said they are “interested” in doing so.
Some 39 percent of dealers, meanwhile, can now offer customers the chance “to complete every step of the auto purchasing process online,” according to the report.
But another report, this one from insurance company Progressive, found that people who bought vehicles online tend to have “higher satisfaction overall than in-person buyers.”
Such an optimistic outlook also helps to drive other activity in this space from other companies. CHAMP might have one of the highest profiles for now, but its business promises to get more crowded.
“More and more competitors will come into this space,” Bigelow said, “which is ultimately a good thing for the maturity of our industry. But it’s very difficult to enter this space. And no child says, ‘Oh, I want to grow up and make software for DMVs.’”
He is fond of comparing his company with Netflix and describing competitors as Blockbuster, with his company positioning itself to offer faster service delivery and lower costs.
“The question for the market is this: Do you want to own the future, or just rent the past?” he said.
Bigelow is not the only industry expert anticipating a bright future for digital titling and related technology.
So are the executives at ABS Tag & Title, a Tennessee company that operates in more than 1,400 jurisdictions and acts “as the bridge between fleet companies, dealerships and government agencies,” according to Chief Operating Officer Jessica Bentley in an email interview with Government Technology.
As more states move to electronic lien and titling, she said, “our business is rapidly expanding,” with ABS playing a “major part in the data auditing, (which ensures) the information entering these systems at the DMV are 100 percent accurate and avoid any errors, helping the government tech work more effectively.”
Thanks in part to the National Digital Titling Clearinghouse — launched in West Virginia in 2023 with backing from CHAMP and Tyler Technologies — ABS anticipates what Bentley called an “acceleration of fleet velocity.”
That means less down time for fleet vehicles.
“This is going to affect the number of vehicles we process in a year, and we foresee this causing us to hire more people to keep up with the work and expand our business into other offices,” she said.
But hurdles still remain as not all states keep up with the pace of others, leaving an “uneven patchwork” of state requirements.
“We currently live in a hybrid world where some states are fully digital, but others still require ‘wet signatures’ and blue ink,” Bentley said. “Navigating this is difficult for any national fleet we work with.”
