Newity, a Chicago-based financial technology firm that facilitates small business loans, has closed an $11 million strategic funding round led by CMT Digital, a division of trading and investment firm CMT Group. The company stated the capital will be used to scale its AI-driven underwriting platform and build infrastructure connecting small business credit with blockchain-enabled capital markets.
With new backing from CMT Digital, NEWITY is scaling the technology that helps small businesses access capital faster and more affordably.
We’re transforming a slow, fragmented system into a modern financial infrastructure built for entrepreneurs.
Full article in bio! pic.twitter.com/57jbMLbxPn
— NEWITY (@newitymarket) February 19, 2026
What Newity Does
Newity was established in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to support small businesses navigating the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The company subsequently pivoted to facilitating SBA 7(a) loans and, more recently, launched its own Growth Term Loan product offering up to $350,000 in capital.
The firm operates as a lending service provider it does not lend directly but partners with banks, primarily Northeast Bank, to originate and approve loans. Newity states it has helped more than 125,000 businesses access over $12 billion in funding, with loan approval timelines it claims are three times faster than the national average. The company was ranked No. 596 on the 2025 Inc. 5000 list, reporting three-year revenue growth of 695%. Its co-CEOs, David Cody and Luke LaHaie, were named to American Banker’s “Top 25 People Who Will Change Banking in 2025” list.
The Blockchain Pivot
The investment signals Newity’s intention to explore the tokenization of small business loan assets converting illiquid debt instruments into digital, tradable tokens on blockchain rails.
Co-CEO Luke LaHaie stated the company aims to “reinvent the financial infrastructure that connects entrepreneurs to capital” using AI and blockchain. Co-CEO David Cody described the ambition as building “rails that let small business credit flow to any investor from banks and institutions to blockchain-native buyers”. These are company-stated objectives and have not yet been independently demonstrated.
Investor Context
CMT Digital, founded in 2017, is a crypto-focused venture capital firm that has invested in over 200 blockchain and crypto businesses to date. The firm is a division of CMT Group, a diversified investment firm with more than 25 years of operating history across exchange-traded options, futures, equities, energy products, and digital assets.
CMT Digital closed its fourth venture fund at $136 million in October 2025, drawing capital from family offices, wealthy individuals, and institutional investors. The firm has previously backed notable names including Coinbase, Circle, Figure, FalconX, and Ethena. Its portfolio currently exceeds $600 million in assets under management.
Sam Hallene, Partner at CMT Digital, stated the investment is “intended to support the next phase of growth: scaling origination through automation and expanding long-term liquidity options for small business credit through institutional and blockchain-native capital channels”.
Market Context
The round arrives as real-world asset (RWA) tokenization gains significant institutional traction. Crypto VC investment in Web3 startups exceeded $34 billion in 2025, doubling from 2024, with the RWA sector alone attracting more than $2.5 billion. Tokenized RWAs reached a market capitalization of approximately $30 billion in 2025, representing growth of over 240% year-on-year. Tokenized private credit nearly doubled from $9.85 billion to $18.58 billion during the same period.
Newity enters a space where several protocols already operate. Centrifuge has facilitated tokenized private credit through its Tinlake platform, while Maple Finance has processed over $7 billion in institutional loans on-chain. However, Newity’s model differs in that it targets government-backed SBA loan facilitation as its core business before layering blockchain infrastructure on top a hybrid approach not yet widely replicated in the tokenized credit sector.
The U.S. small business funding gap, which Newity cites at $350 billion annually, remains a structural challenge the company is positioning itself to address through combined AI and blockchain infrastructure. Whether the firm can successfully translate its SBA lending operations into an on-chain model remains to be seen as it navigates regulatory, technical, and market adoption hurdles.
The funding also reflects broader momentum across crypto-fintech convergence, similar to recent developments such as Kresus Labs secures $13M, signaling sustained investor appetite for infrastructure bridging traditional finance and blockchain ecosystems.
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