Blackbird Labs

🚀 Driving Innovation at Blackbird 🚀 Blackbird has been recognized as one of Fast Company‘s Most Innovative Companies of 2025! We believe restaurant loyalty should be effortless, rewarding, and built on real relationships. This honor reflects our commitment to redefining the way diners and restaurants connect and giving restaurants the tools to take control of their economic destiny. Fast Company puts it best: “Blackbird uses new technology to facilitate human connection.” Our platform empowers restaurants to build deeper relationships with diners—because at the end of the day, it’s about people, not the technology powering the experience. Read more: http://bit.ly/4ixkJXG A huge thank you to our team, our restaurant partners, and our members for bringing this vision to life. We’re just getting started—and we’re hiring! If you’re passionate about shaping the future of restaurant loyalty, check out our open roles: https://blackbird.xyz/jobs

CEO and founder, Ben Leventhal, joined the Lightspeed podcast alongside Variant's Jesse Walden to discuss the launch of Flynet and how Blackbird is a game-changer for restaurants: “The fact that we can do all of this on our own chain, independent of those legacy entities, is going to massively change the game for restaurants.” Listen to the full conversation now: https://bit.ly/4ks4Zaj

The restaurant industry has been stuck with high fees, fragmented data, and outdated payment systems for too long. Today, we’re launching Flynet—a transactions network designed to change that. With Flynet, restaurants keep more of their revenue, own their customer relationships, and unlock new ways to reward loyalty. The future of restaurant payments is putting both restaurants and their guests first–and we’re so happy to be along for the ride with them. 📖 Learn more from our CEO and founder, Ben Leventhal: https://bit.ly/4gZtY1E Arbitrum Coinbase Conduit Privy

Great piece by The Wall Street Journal on why it pays to $FLY with Blackbird. From accruing points every time you tap in and pay with Blackbird, to the perks of exclusive memberships like our Breakfast Club, to employee only pucks that hook up our industry friends, we're building the loyalty company that rewards restaurants, restaurant workers, and restaurant pros (aka you) alike. The restaurant economy of the future starts now. LFG. 🚀 #restaurants #tech #hospitality #loyalty https://bit.ly/4hTcRiM

At its core, hospitality is a relationship business. The more you know your guests, the greater bond you can forge, and thus the better, more bespoke service you can provide. You'll see a lot about how Blackbird rewards its users through things like $FLY, our points system, as well as other core app features that can make dining just that much more magical, from frictionless pay to exclusive memberships and more. But beyond the consumer value prop, there's another, not so insignificant party to this business that we're equally invested in: the restaurants and bars on our platform. These businesses are pros when it comes to providing great hospitality. We'd never say otherwise. But if we can help them know their customers just that much more, and thus create an even better, more personalized experience, well, that's exactly what we're here for. Which is why we're so excited to see operators in San Francisco—our latest market—saying just that. “It drives people into the restaurant,” said Benson Wang, the CEO and co-founder of the hospitality group behind the cocktail bar Bergerac and the restaurant Palm House. “We’re in the business to create that third place and to create connections … to get access to that loyalty, people need to show up. This is one of the few apps that I’ve seen that is built around incentivizing people to do that.” https://lnkd.in/eUrB3YUc

⚡ SERIES A COMPANIES HIRING, RIGHT NOW ⚡ These companies are venture backed and are hiring across all disciplines. RESHARE so folks can get their apps in 👇 Mintlify - SF: https://bit.ly/4akohcI Pylon - SF: https://bit.ly/4hhZhp5 Crux - Remote: https://bit.ly/4amX21h Graphite - NYC: https://bit.ly/49AWpRy Lightspark - LA: https://bit.ly/41qcW8F ModernFi - NYC: https://bit.ly/3DYn6np Yuno - Worldwide: https://bit.ly/40xZPS9 Rutter - NYC/Remote US: https://bit.ly/4goiipl ElevenLabs - Worldwide: https://bit.ly/41jGl4B Braintrust - Remote US: https://bit.ly/4eX0KQY Adaptive - NYC/Remote US: https://bit.ly/3BlJshG Truffle Security Co. - Remote: https://bit.ly/42dGTcE Series Entertainment - Remote Americas: https://bit.ly/s3ri3s Blackbird Labs - NYC/SF/Remote US: https://bit.ly/3Vu87HC Anrok - NYC/SF/Salt Lake City: https://lnkd.in/givHqbTh Uniswap Labs - NYC/Remote US: https://bit.ly/49xZ3Y3 Pearl Health - NYC/Boston/Remote: https://bit.ly/42icfib Function Health - Remote US: https://bit.ly/3ApwbUz Kindred - SF/London/Remote: https://bit.ly/4h0YM2t Chainguard - Remote US: https://lnkd.in/g66VETz4 Summer Health - NYC/SF: https://lnkd.in/geBBb7ca Ideogram - NYC/Toronto: https://bit.ly/3W4WzvF Vantage - NYC/Remote US: https://bit.ly/4g5jr5c Mistral AI - US/France/UK: https://bit.ly/3xHn5RB Kalshi - NYC/Remote: https://lnkd.in/gNSzbMAK Claim - Boston/Remote: https://lnkd.in/geXt-KYy Squint - SF/Remote: https://lnkd.in/gRPxmvC7 Stainless - NYC: https://lnkd.in/gqVT9ZAc Oso - NYC: https://lnkd.in/gZ-AszNY

In this talk, Ben Leventhal shares his entrepreneurial journey of being the founder of Eater, Resy, and now Blackbird Labs. This conversation, moderated by a16z crypto general partner Arianna Simpson, covers the evolution of going from a magazine to building a tech company, his advice for early stage founders, and how web3 enables Blackbird. Check out the full talk here: https://lnkd.in/gtXrXG3e You can also apply to our spring CSX cohort to hear these conversations in-person, plus off the record talks, workshops, office hours, & more: https://lnkd.in/gKcN_kWj

This week, the NYC DePIN community came together for a meetup at the DIMO office. It was fantastic to meet some community members irl, and we even got a sneak peek at a handful of demos showing off the latest and greatest in DePIN. Huge shoutout to all the presenters from Helium, Fleek, Blackbird Labs, Icebreaker Labs, Daylight Energy, IoTeX, Allora Labs.

The key to consumer crypto is bridging the digital - IRL divide. At Blackbird, that means earning and burning $FLY… With the overwhelming success and enthusiasm we saw last summer with our Cowy Burger pop-up, we’ve decided to partner with The Standard once more to unlock IRL events for the Blackbird community, and the only way to experience it is with Blackbird Pay.  Today, we’re excited to introduce Blackbird Residency at The Standard Biergarten, where we’re checking in for the rest of the year with a curated lineup of iykyk restaurants and chefs. The monthly residency kicks off with Danny Bowien of Mission Chinese Food bringing his iconic Chinese-American grub for one-weekend-only. The Lineup: 🔸Mission Chinese Food — Oct 26-27 🔸Border Town — Nov 9-10 🔸Mini Kabob— Dec 6-8 (their first ever NYC pop-up!) Where:  📍 The Standard Biergarten 848 Washington St, New York First Weekend Details:  Saturday, October 26th: 12:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. Sunday, October 27th: 12:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Access is first come, first served, and hours are subject to selling out. All purchases on site will be via Blackbird Pay. So load up on $FLY and add a payment card in the Blackbird app. Mark your calendars and see you there! 

Being part of Blackbird means exclusive and unique experiences. All through the magic of $FLY. This fall, we’re bringing both coasts together to celebrate Cantonese cuisine for a one-of-a-kind experience. We’ve partnered with Brandon Jew of Mister Jiu’s and Calving Eng of Brooklyn’s Bonnie’s to come together with a seven course menu. 🐉 Dragon Feast SF:  Date: October 23  Location: Mister Jiu’s Book Here: https://lnkd.in/evhzS_p4 🐉 Dragon Feast NY:  Date: Nov 12 Location: Bonnie’s Book Here: https://lnkd.in/eaG8gXFp Score reservations for night one in SF or night two in Brooklyn (or both!) and check in and pay with Blackbird (make sure to add a payment card in advance). Tables available for parties of 2 - 6 from 6 p.m. Link in bio to book your reservation. See you there 🤜🤛