Newity Secures $11M to Rebuild Small Business Lending on Blockchain Rails

Key Takeaways

1. Fintech firm Newity raised $11 million in its first-ever funding round, led by CMT Digital, a crypto-focused venture arm of CMT Group that has invested in over 200 blockchain businesses since 2017.
2. Newity has already processed over $12 billion in financing for more than 125,000 small businesses across the U.S., with an average loan size of approximately $118,800.
3. The funds will scale Newity’s AI-first underwriting platform and build infrastructure to connect small business credit with blockchain-enabled capital markets, targeting a $350 billion annual funding gap.
4. The round was structured as a SAFE agreement (Simple Agreement for Future Equity), launched in late 2024 and closed in December 2025, with valuation details undisclosed.

Quick Recap

Chicago-based fintech company Newity announced on February 19, 2026, that it has completed an $11 million strategic funding round led by CMT Digital. This marks the company’s inaugural external capital raise since its founding in 2020. The investment will be used to scale AI-driven loan origination and to build blockchain infrastructure that could transform small business debt from an illiquid asset into digital, tradable instruments.

🚨 JUST IN: Fintech firm Newity raises $11M in a funding round led by CMT Digital to bring small business loans onchain. pic.twitter.com/5vsmDI4cMf

— The Daily Block (@thedailyblock) February 20, 2026

From Pandemic Startup to Blockchain Pioneer

Newity was founded during the COVID-19 pandemic by co-CEOs Luke LaHaie and David Cody, initially helping small businesses navigate the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). After the PPP ended in May 2021, the company pivoted to become a lending service provider for SBA 7(a) government-backed loans and growth term loans, partnering with Northeast Bank as the originating institution.

The company’s proprietary AI-first underwriting platform analyzes hundreds of data points, including credit checks, identity verification, and tax document summaries, to provide borrowers with a prequalified loan amount in less than 10 minutes. This technology compresses the traditional SBA lending timeline from roughly 12 weeks down to just 21 days.

“We’re not improving small business lending, we’re reinventing the financial infrastructure that connects entrepreneurs to capital,” said LaHaie. “AI and blockchain give us the infrastructure to empower our team to operate at the scale that this market demands.”​

CMT Digital partner Sam Hallene added that the investment supports “scaling origination through automation and expanding long-term liquidity options for small business credit through institutional and blockchain-native capital channels”. Newity currently employs approximately 115 staff and is actively hiring across technology, marketing, and partner roles.

Why Onchain Lending Matters Now?

The timing of Newity’s blockchain pivot aligns with a broader industry shift. Traditional small business lending in the U.S. remains constrained by a roughly $350 billion annual funding shortfall, with 99.9% of U.S. firms classified as small businesses. Meanwhile, the tokenized real-world asset (RWA) market is accelerating, and analysts project the crypto lending market could reach $25 billion by 2030.

By moving loans onchain, Newity aims to convert small business debt into tokenized instruments that can be traded on secondary markets, improving liquidity and recycling capital back to entrepreneurs at scale. In practical terms, this could involve stablecoin-based loan disbursement and repayment, smart contract automation of repayment schedules, and transparent, on-chain records of outstanding obligations.

Newity plans to reveal the specifics of its blockchain strategy in Q1 2026. The regulatory environment remains a key variable. Companies entering this space must balance compliance with innovation, especially when bridging traditional SBA-backed lending with decentralized finance rails.

Competitive Landscape

Newity is entering an onchain lending arena already populated by crypto-native protocols. Two of the most directly comparable platforms operating at the intersection of real-world asset lending and blockchain are Goldfinch and Centrifuge, both of which target underserved credit markets using decentralized infrastructure.

Newity’s core advantage is scale: $12 billion in processed loans and 125,000+ business relationships dwarf the loan volumes of Goldfinch and Centrifuge. However, both competitors are already live onchain with established smart contract infrastructure and DeFi integrations.

If Newity can successfully migrate even a fraction of its existing loan volume to blockchain rails, it would instantly become one of the largest RWA lending platforms by originated volume. The challenge will be execution: bridging a regulated SBA lending operation with decentralized settlement is a technical and compliance task that neither Goldfinch nor Centrifuge has attempted at this scale.

Bayelsa Watch’s Takeaway

I think Newity’s $11 million raise is a quiet signal with loud implications. In my experience covering fintech and blockchain convergence, the projects that gain real traction are the ones that bring existing, proven business models onchain rather than trying to build borrower demand from scratch. That is exactly what Newity is doing.

The company is not a crypto startup searching for product-market fit. It already has $12 billion in loan volume, over 125,000 business customers, and a working AI underwriting engine. The blockchain component is an infrastructure upgrade, not a speculative bet.