About Us

WHO WE ARE

In early 2022, a group of real estate executives joined forces to fill a void we saw in the commercial real estate industry: the need for a smarter, more efficient approach to capital markets.

Together, we set out to create the new CRE industry standard — a tech-enabled approach to capital markets that unites modernity and client service.

AXCS is a growing team of 50+ professionals. Our signature financing processes are built on a foundation of experience, including that of legacy capital market service provider George Smith Partners (GSP), with its record of over $65B+ in financing.

AXCS LEADERSHIP

ED STEFFELIN

PRESIDENT, AXCS INVESTMENTS

MICHAEL LLORDRA

Managing Director,
AXCS Investments

JUSTIN PIASECKI

President,
George Smith Partners

Technology Leadership

SEDRIC BENSON

DIRECTOR, ENGINEERING OPERATIONS

TOLI LEONOVICH

DIRECTOR, ENGINEERING ARCHITECTURE

OUR MISSION

We’re committed to delivering unparalleled transparency, transactional
speed, and accuracy to CRE capital markets.

Justin Piasecki

President of George Smith Partners

Email

jpiasecki@gspartners.com

Profile

LinkedIn

Justin R. Piasecki is President of George Smith Partners, focusing on Debt, Joint Venture, Structured Finance & Loan Sales for commercial real estate investors, developers, and financial institutions.

His area of expertise includes debt and equity capital raises, the sale of performing/non-performing loan portfolios and securing lines of credit/A-note financing for commercial real estate bridge lenders/private equity lenders. Piasecki draws upon his contacts and background from over 19 years of Capital Markets experience.

Prior to joining George Smith Partners, Mr. Piasecki was the Managing Partner at Lev, Inc., a Financial Technology Platform that focuses on digitizing commercial mortgage transactions. Piasecki closed over $1.3B of Financings in his 2 years at the firm as well as assisted in Lev raising $110MM of Venture backed funding through their Seed, Series A and Series B fundraising rounds.

Mr. Piasecki previously spend 9 years as a Principal in Avison Young’s New York City based Debt, Joint Venture & Structured Finance group where he focused on raising LP Equity, Preferred Equity, Mezzanine and First Mortgage Financing as well as selling loans for Investors, Developers, banks and funds. Mr. Piasecki was top producer globally for the firm and was a multiple time recipient of Avison Young’s Circle of Excellence.

Prior to joining Avison Young, Mr. Piasecki was a Senior Vice President for 6 years at The Carlton Group, a global real estate investment banking firm, where he was a top producer and dealmaker. Before that, he was a national direct private equity lender at Zurich Mortgage Solutions, where he served as Chief Operating Officer and Vice President. He handled operations for a company with annual originations of over $150 million. Mr. Piasecki began his career at Triple Crown Properties, a luxury home developer and real estate company in Palm Beach, Florida, where he was promoted to Vice President of Operations before joining United Appraisal Network, and led it to become the number two residential appraisal company in Florida.

Mr. Piasecki has been recognized in the industry with various awards: Avison Young’s Circle of Excellence 2013-2020, Globest.com 2019 50 Under 40: Rising Young Professionals in Commercial Real Estate, Dallas CEO Magazine 2017 Best Commercial Property Sale/Financing, 2017 Dallas Business Journal Best Deal of the Year, New York: The New Players of Commercial Real Estate and CRE Finance for the Commercial Observer (November 2015), Mortgage Observer’s 20 under 35 (October 2013), “The Real Deal Magazine” as one of the Top 35 under 35, Up and Coming Real Estate Moguls in NYC (April 2011) and to Real Estate Forum Magazine Top 40 under 40 in Commercial Real Estate (October 2011). Mr. Piasecki is a graduate of Rutgers University where he received a BS in Political Science and was a four-year letter winner on the men’s basketball team. He is also a member of the Urban Land Institute, Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA), Rutgers University Men’s Basketball Board of Advisors, Rutgers Business School Center for Real Estate Emerging Leaders Council, New York Real Estate Salesperson License. Mr. Piasecki and his wife Rebecca have 4 children and reside in Rumson, NJ.

Toli Leonovich

Director, Engineering Architecture

Email

toli@axcscapital.com

Profile

LinkedIn

Sedric Benson

Director, Engineering Operations

Email

sedric.benson@axcscapital.com

Profile

LinkedIn

Sedric is Director, Engineering Operations at AXCS Capital. Sedric is using his experience and skills to build a technology driven CRE finance platform at AXCS Capital. He has previously held a variety of engineering and leadership positions in both eCommerce and healthcare industries at Angi and RedSail Technologies. He has led teams comprised of people from all around the world and has experience participating in each of the various roles within the software development lifecycle including architecture, design, requirements creation, front end and backend development, quality assurance, and deployment. He chose a career in technology because there is always something new to learn, and he loves a challenge. Sedric has a BS in Computer Science from Andrews University.

Kevin Welch

Executive Chairman

Email

kevin@axcscapital.com

Profile

LinkedIn

Kevin is the Executive Chairman of AXCS Capital. Kevin is an experienced and successful entrepreneur with a demonstrated track record of growing technology driven companies from inception to multi-billion-dollar entities. Kevin recently created, spun-out & sold RedSail Technologies to a private equity sponsor and in doing so created the largest provider of information systems and data services in the pharmaceutical technology sector. Prior to the RedSail, Kevin was president of Smith Technologies (representing the QS/1®, Integra®, PUBLIQTM, and PowerLineTM brands) and Chief Technical Officer of the J M Smith Corporation, a large multi-billion-dollar company and the 4th largest drug distributor in the US.

Prior to Smith Technologies, Kevin was CEO of Integra which he founded and sold. Prior to Integra, Kevin was president of Shared Healthcare System (sold to OmniCare), CTO of Sun Healthcare Systems (one of the largest public senior healthcare providers), Director of R&D of Symantec Corporation (SYMC), and a Research scientist at Genetech (sold to Roche). Kevin holds degrees in mathematics, computer science, operations research and engineering management from Stanford University.

Ed Steffelin

CIO AXCS Investments

Email

ed@axcscapital.com

Profile

LinkedIn

Ed is a co-founder of AXCS Capital and the Chief Investment Officer for AXCS Investments. Ed has over 25 years of investment experience in structured products, alternative assets, and real estate. He has been actively engaged in the residential development, financing, and construction sectors for the past 10 years.

From 2009 until late 2017, he was EVP of Capital Markets at Walton International Group where he oversaw a New York based analyst team focused on land and land development projects. While at Walton, Ed was instrumental in building up their institutional relationships. During his tenure, he formed a distressed vacant developed lot fund, structured a long-term land investment vehicle with a family office and created a private equity firm focused on the residential real estate space, RAM Real Estate Capital. In 2008 and 2009, Ed was a Managing Director at ICP Capital where he was responsible for winding down several structured finance vehicles and purchasing distressed mortgage securities.

Ed graduated from Dartmouth College with an MBA degree and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with Honors from Occidental College with a BA degree in Economics.

Evan Kinne

CEO

Email

evan@axcscapital.com

Profile

LinkedIn