Ben Leventhal is a veteran of the restaurant industry. He cofounded the food publication Eater in 2005. He helped found and lead the restaurant reservation platform Resy, which American Express acquired in 2019. And, in 2022, the serial entrepreneur raised $11 million to found Blackbird, a blockchain-based app for restaurants.
On Tuesday, his company Blackbird Labs announced its newest tranche of funding: $50 million in a Series B round led by Silicon Valley investor Spark Capital. Other participants were Coinbase, a16z crypto, Union Square Ventures, and Amex Ventures. The raise was for company equity along with token warrants, or allocations of a yet-to-be-released cryptocurrency. Leventhal, who said he raised the funds in the fourth quarter of 2024, declined to disclose the round’s implied valuation. Blackbird Labs has raised $85 million since 2022.
Blackbird is a loyalty and payments app for restaurants. Every time users visit a restaurant registered with the app, they receive rewards in the form of an in-house cryptocurrency called $FLY. Users can use the cryptocurrency to pay for meals anywhere in Blackbird’s network, which encompasses over 600 restaurants across New York City, San Francisco, and Charleston, South Carolina. “We want to be in the great cities of the U.S.,” Leventhal said, though he declined to say which cities his app was targeting next.
Leventhal’s company stands out as one of only a few ventures applying blockchain technology to a broad-based consumer market, instead of crypto niches like memecoins, Wall Street behemoths, and stablecoins.
Users can buy more $FLY tokens with cash. Eventually, Leventhal envisions that other applications or developers will want to build on a blockchain-based network that tracks where and what customers are eating. His company has released its own blockchain in February, built on top of Coinbase’s Base, called Flynet.
For now, though, Leventhal is focused on expanding Blackbird’s products. Along with the $50 million fundraise, he also unveiled his app’s newest offering: a loyalty program. Users who frequently check into restaurants with Blackbird are eligible. They may receive guaranteed reservations, off-the-menu entrées, or invites to exclusive events, among other potential benefits.
Users can also fast track their inclusion into the loyalty program if they load in a requisite amount of $FLY into their accounts, Leventhal said.