🔒West Hartford fintech New Silver pivots from software startup to fast-growing real estate lender

New Silver isn’t in the metals-trading business — though its name might suggest otherwise. “I recently got a call asking what the price of silver is,” said Kirill Bensonoff, co-founder and CEO of the West Hartford-based company. “That’s not what we do.” While that’s true, the company Bensonoff and his friend, Chief Risk Officer Alex Shvayetsky, founded in 2018 has changed focus over the years. What began as a fintech startup offering software as a service has since pivoted into a lending platform that provides capital to real estate developers. “Basically, we were testing different ideas,” Bensonoff said. “And one of them was this software for valuing single-family or small multifamily assets, and it tested really well.” The software, Bensonoff said, could value a property, both in its existing condition and as renovated, and “almost instantly” issue preliminary loan terms, including pricing, the interest rate, maximum loan amount and more. The software — which internally the company calls “HQ” — uses data to provide online loan approvals, term sheets and proof of funds within minutes, allowing developers to make an offer on a property and then return to New Silver to close a loan. “We were testing it, it was very, very high accuracy,” Bensonoff said, noting that since the software has been in use, the loan terms it has initially provided to developers have not had to be altered. Even so, the New Silver co-founders found that market demand in the construction lending industry was too limited to make the product sustain profitability. What New Silver did have was a lot of people who fix and flip houses using its technology. That led them to shift their focus to originating loans for real estate investors as the company’s core business. That decision came about six years ago. Since then, New Silver has expanded rapidly, earning spots on Inc. magazine’s list of the fastest-growing companies in the Northeast in back-to-back years. It ranked 56th in 2024 with 335% revenue growth since 2020, and 135th this year with two-year growth of 34%.

Though the co-founders declined to disclose revenue for the privately held company, they said New Silver now employs about 30 people, finances projects in 40 states and has closed more than $300 million in loans. The firm also manages a $10 million income fund that raises capital from accredited investors to finance loans, part of the $50 million it has raised overall. Not bad for a couple of guys whose families escaped the former Soviet Union.

Out of the USSR

Bensonoff and Shvayetsky have been friends since they first met in West Hartford years ago. The fact they connected at all was serendipitous. “I was born in Belarus; back then it was still (part of) the Soviet Union,” Bensonoff said. “We left right before it fell apart.” He was 11 years old at the time. His family settled in an apartment on Loomis Drive near West Hartford Center, coincidentally just around the corner from where New Silver would eventually have its office at 28 North Main St. Similarly, Shvayestky and his family left Ukraine, which also was part of the Soviet Union at the time, and settled in West Hartford. He was 15. Bensonoff, who is now 47 and lives in Massachusetts, doesn’t recall if they met at Hall HIgh School or before that, but said they hit it off from the start. “What brought us together is our similar background, both immigrants from the USSR, and also our passion for doing things — whether it was working out together or starting a business,” he said. “We both loved similar things and got along well, and our skills and personalities complete each other.” Following high school, Shvayetsky, now 51, studied math and economics at Brandeis University in Massachusetts but did not graduate; he later earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Connecticut. He spent more than 22 years working as a controller for Udolf Enterprises, one of the largest property owners, developers and managers in Greater Hartford. He also has served as a limited partner with Gideon GP, a Delaware-based private investment firm that specializes in real estate loans. Bensonoff earned a bachelor’s degree in information technology from Central Connecticut State University. Following a two-year apprenticeship as a data analyst at Intex Solutions Inc., and a year as a systems consultant at IBM Global Services, Bensonoff says he started or co-founded several tech-related businesses, including Unigma, a cloud management company that helped IT organizations manage and secure their systems. Unigma was acquired by Kaseya in 2017. With Shvayetsky’s background in real estate and Bensonoff’s experience as an entrepreneur in the IT industry, it set the foundation for establishing a real estate fintech like New Silver. “We’re basically just a lender,” Bensonoff said. “We do not own property. We don’t want to own property. We want to use technology to make the process easy for people who need the financing.”

Financing terms

New Silver provides financing for a variety of developers and real estate investors: • Fix-and-flip: Loans for buyers looking to renovate and resell properties, covering up to 90% loan-to-cost (LTC). Amounts range from $100,000 to $5 million, with terms up to 18 months and interest rates between 9.25% and 11.25%. • Ground-up construction: Financing for residential builders, also up to 90% LTC. Loans range from $100,000 to $5 million with 18-month terms and rates from 10.25% to 11.25%. • Rental properties: Thirty-year fixed-rate loans starting at 5.875% for properties owned by the borrower, from $150,000 up to $3 million. New Silver also recently added financing for commercial real estate investors seeking short-term loans for acquiring, rehabilitating or refinancing properties. While there is no application fee and using the software on the website is free, the company makes its revenue from origination fees and interest payments. And although it operates in about 40 states, it’s licensed and regulated only in Arizona and California. Connecticut doesn’t require a license for the type of lending it does, Bensonoff said. A spokesman for the state Department of Banking confirmed that. New Silver’s pivot into commercial lending is aimed at driving continued business growth, Shvayetsky said, adding that while the commercial office market has struggled since the pandemic, other property types remain busy. “We see ourselves as a fintech lender that will fill a specific niche in the market,” Shvayetsky said. “I think a lot of local banks are pulling out of the space. And there is definitely a need in this up-to-$15 million (commercial real estate) sector. … There’s a lot more demand for the capital.”