Chicago’s NEWITY raises $11M: tying AI underwriting to blockchain capital

NEWITY, a Chicago-based fintech business helping small businesses secure government-backed loans, announced it received an $11 million strategic investment led by CMT Digital to scale its AI-driven lending infrastructure and build connections between small-business credit and blockchain-enabled capital markets.

The company framed the round as a step toward resolving what it calls a persistent $350 billion annual funding shortfall for U.S. small businesses. NEWITY says it has helped more than 125,000 businesses obtain roughly $12 billion in Small Business Administration (SBA) loans, and that its technology has cut typical funding timelines to about one-third of the national average. 

The new capital, the startup said, will be used to scale “NEWITY's AI-first underwriting platform to further streamline loan origination and building infrastructure to connect small business credit with blockchain-enabled capital markets.”

The investment comes from CMT Digital, a web3‑focused venture unit of CMT Group. Sam Hallene, Partner at CMT Digital explained the deal in the announcement as support for “scaling origination through automation and expanding long‑term liquidity options for small business credit through institutional and blockchain-native capital channels.”

NEWITY markets itself as a platform that combines artificial intelligence with expert guidance to streamline SBA 7(a) loan origination and a product it calls Growth Term Loans. The company’s release says SBA 7(a) loans facilitated through NEWITY are still originated and approved by participating SBA lenders, as NEWITY itself is not the lender. 

The company’s co-CEOs, Luke LaHaie and David Cody, are presented in the announcement alongside their backgrounds in private credit and capital markets. “We’re not improving small business lending, we’re reinventing the financial infrastructure that connects entrepreneurs to capital,” LaHaie said in the announcement.

NEWITY’s pitch centers on converting small‑business debt, historically an illiquid asset class held largely by banks and specialty finance firms, into digitally tradable instruments. The company says “blockchain-ready capital market infrastructure” will allow small-business loans to be packaged and sold to a broader set of buyers, including “blockchain‑native” investors, thereby recycling capital back into new loans.

“We’re not aiming to shrink the $350 billion gap; we’re building infrastructure to eliminate it,” Cody said.

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