• Blackbird

  Participated · Series A · Oct 2023

  Blackbird operates a payments-meets-loyalty platform for restaurants, combining an app-based payment flow with on-chain loyalty functionality. Its Flynet payment service is described as a layer-three transaction protocol built on Coinbase’s BASE, allowing diners to pay and redeem points via the app. The company works with roughly 1,000 restaurants and says it saves restaurant customers 3–4% in payment processing fees. Blackbird plans to use new funding to launch a cross-restaurant points product called Blackbird Club and to expand beyond its Homebase in New York into additional markets, including San Francisco and Charleston, South Carolina. CEO Ben Leventhal positions the product to give consumers ownership of profiles and to make restaurant customers shareholders in the network. The startup has raised $85 million to date, including the most recent financing. Blackbird Labs provides a restaurant loyalty and membership platform that lets diners "tap in" via an NFC reader to create memberships and earn virtual, cryptocurrency-based rewards. The platform captures diner data (dining history, birthdays, addresses, seating preferences) to help restaurants personalize service, target promotions and reward returning patrons. Blackbird has integrated with Privy to offer embedded crypto wallets so users can manage balances alongside their membership. Since launching several months ago, New York City–based Blackbird has about 20 full-time employees, has signed roughly 80 restaurants and 22 are actively using the product. The company enables restaurants to sell paid memberships and has customers using membership sales as pre-opening crowdfunding; it plans a referral program and further experiments with its cryptocurrency for upgrades, activity rewards and payments. Proceeds from fundraising will be used to scale operations.

No current team members are available.