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Message: Dreams don’t shine by themselves; it’s us chasing them that makes us shine! For more projects with huge potential, please contact the assistant QQ: 1255277313.
I. Milestone of the “Blockchain Transformation” in the Catering Industry: The $85 Million Financing Narrative of Blackbird Labs
In April 2025, the crypto dining app Blackbird Labs announced the completion of a $50 million Series B financing round, led by Spark Capital and joined by top-tier institutions such as Coinbase, a16z crypto, and Union Square Ventures. With this, the Web3 company founded by Ben Leventhal, co-founder of Resy and Eater, has now raised a total of $85 million. This figure not only sets a new record for tech financing in the catering industry but also marks the arrival of the tipping point for blockchain technology to penetrate the trillion-dollar dining market.
Why are investors betting on it? The pain points of the traditional catering industry resonate strongly with the potential of Web3. According to data from the Blackbird team, restaurants on average lose 3-5% of their revenue to payment processors and platform commissions, while issues such as rigid customer loyalty systems and unclear data ownership remain unresolved. Arianna Simpson, general partner at a16z, pointed out: “The catering industry is made up of millions of small businesses that need to break free from the profit squeeze of tech platforms, and blockchain is the key to rebuilding the value distribution system.”
II. From “Points Alliance” to “Soul Binding”: The Architecture of Blackbird’s Web3 Dining Empire
Blackbird’s ambition goes far beyond simple cryptocurrency payments. Its core is to restructure the three pillars of the catering industry through blockchain technology: payment systems, loyalty programs, and customer relationship networks, with the goal of creating a “decentralized ecosystem” governed jointly by restaurants, diners, and employees.
1. Dual-Track Token Economy: The Synergy of FLY and F2
$FLY Token: As an in-app loyalty point, users earn it through actions such as dining and check-ins, and can use it to offset meal costs across restaurants or exchange for exclusive benefits (such as hidden menus, interactions with celebrity chefs). 50% of the newly issued FLY each day is allocated to users, and the other 50% goes to partner restaurants, creating a two-way incentive.
$F2 Token: The native token of the Flynet mainnet, it is used for paying on-chain gas fees and governance rights. The team plans to airdrop 13% of the supply to early users, with the remaining 87% allocated for ecosystem development, aiming to gradually transfer network control to the community.
This design retains the usability of the points system while achieving ecosystem self-governance through on-chain governance, avoiding the centralized monopoly of traditional platforms.
2. Flynet: The Layer3 Infrastructure Dedicated to the Catering Industry
In February 2025, Blackbird launched Flynet, a Layer3 network based on the Coinbase Base chain, fully integrating payments, rewards, and data storage on-chain. Its four major innovations include:
Cost Revolution: Transaction fees are reduced from 3.75% of credit cards to 2%, with 1.5% directly returned to restaurants for customer operations;
Data Sovereignty: Consumption records are managed by users themselves, and restaurants can obtain precise portraits with authorization, ending the data hegemony of platforms;
Seamless Experience: Scan-to-pay and second-level on-chain, eliminating the pain point of checkout waiting;
Cross-Scenario Interoperability: Points and membership benefits can flow across restaurants, breaking the island effect of traditional loyalty programs.
3. Blackbird Club: From “Transactional Loyalty” to “Experiential Identification”
Unlike failed cases such as Starbucks’ NFT plan, Blackbird Club abandons pure points exchange and instead builds a tiered experience system. Members upgrade through dining frequency and community contributions to unlock exclusive benefits such as guaranteed reservations and secret menu tastings. The first batch of partner restaurants includes well-known brands such as Gjelina in New York and SPQR in San Francisco, reshaping user loyalty through “emotional connection + identity recognition.”
III. Disruption Logic: Why Blackbird May Become the Paradigm for Web3 Consumer Adoption?
1. Dual Genes of the Founding Team
Ben Leventhal has been deeply involved in the catering industry for 20 years. His founded Resy (acquired by American Express) and Eater (acquired by Vox) have respectively defined the industry standards for restaurant reservations and food media. This combination of “traditional industry insight + Web3 tech belief” enables him to accurately grasp the pain points of catering, rather than falling into technological fantasy.
2. “Physical-Digital” Symbiosis Model
Unlike traditional DeFi projects, Blackbird uses more than 600 physical restaurants as landing points. User behavior (dining, check-ins) and on-chain incentives (FLY rewards) form a closed loop. This “offline customer acquisition - online sedimentation - cross-scenario reuse” model avoids the bubble risk of pure virtual economy.
3. Differentiated Path Against Web2 Giants
Compared to platforms like Meituan and Dianping, which charge up to 25% commission, Flynet only charges a fixed fee of 2%, and part of the revenue is returned to restaurants. This “cost reduction + empowerment” strategy directly hits the core demands of small and medium-sized restaurants and may trigger industry-wide migration.
IV. Challenges and Future: Breaking the “Impossible Triangle” of Web3 Catering
Despite its broad prospects, Blackbird still needs to face three major tests:
User Education: The complexity of cryptocurrency payments and wallet management may hinder mass adoption. To this end, Blackbird has partnered with Privy to allow users to create custodial wallets with their phone numbers, lowering the entry barrier.
Regulatory Compliance: Catering involves multiple regulatory areas such as payments, taxes, and consumer protection, and it is necessary to balance the ideal of decentralization with the real legal framework.
Ecosystem Expansion: Currently covering only cities like New York and San Francisco, it needs to accelerate global layout to form a network effect.
Future Outlook: The team plans to open Flynet to developers to build derivative applications such as data markets and marketing tools, and expand the reward system to practitioners such as chefs and waitstaff, truly achieving “full-chain reconstruction of the catering value chain.”
Investment Institutions:
Project Team:
Conclusion: A Web3 Revolution “Eaten” into Reality
While most blockchain projects are still entangled in transaction mining and NFT speculation, Blackbird has chosen a more difficult but socially valuable path - to bring technology back to the essence of life. As Leventhal said: “The best restaurants make people feel a sense of belonging instantly, and Web3 should make this feeling transcend physical boundaries and become a sustainable digital civilization.” If his vision comes true, the catering industry may give birth to the first trillion-dollar on-chain economy, and the FLY tokens in our hands may just be the key to this revolution.
Message: Dreams don’t shine by themselves; it’s us chasing them that makes us shine! For more projects with huge potential, please contact the assistant QQ: 1255277313.
I. Milestone of the “Blockchain Transformation” in the Catering Industry: The $85 Million Financing Narrative of Blackbird Labs
In April 2025, the crypto dining app Blackbird Labs announced the completion of a $50 million Series B financing round, led by Spark Capital and joined by top-tier institutions such as Coinbase, a16z crypto, and Union Square Ventures. With this, the Web3 company founded by Ben Leventhal, co-founder of Resy and Eater, has now raised a total of $85 million. This figure not only sets a new record for tech financing in the catering industry but also marks the arrival of the tipping point for blockchain technology to penetrate the trillion-dollar dining market.
Why are investors betting on it? The pain points of the traditional catering industry resonate strongly with the potential of Web3. According to data from the Blackbird team, restaurants on average lose 3-5% of their revenue to payment processors and platform commissions, while issues such as rigid customer loyalty systems and unclear data ownership remain unresolved. Arianna Simpson, general partner at a16z, pointed out: “The catering industry is made up of millions of small businesses that need to break free from the profit squeeze of tech platforms, and blockchain is the key to rebuilding the value distribution system.”
II. From “Points Alliance” to “Soul Binding”: The Architecture of Blackbird’s Web3 Dining Empire
Blackbird’s ambition goes far beyond simple cryptocurrency payments. Its core is to restructure the three pillars of the catering industry through blockchain technology: payment systems, loyalty programs, and customer relationship networks, with the goal of creating a “decentralized ecosystem” governed jointly by restaurants, diners, and employees.
1. Dual-Track Token Economy: The Synergy of FLY and F2
$FLY Token: As an in-app loyalty point, users earn it through actions such as dining and check-ins, and can use it to offset meal costs across restaurants or exchange for exclusive benefits (such as hidden menus, interactions with celebrity chefs). 50% of the newly issued FLY each day is allocated to users, and the other 50% goes to partner restaurants, creating a two-way incentive.
$F2 Token: The native token of the Flynet mainnet, it is used for paying on-chain gas fees and governance rights. The team plans to airdrop 13% of the supply to early users, with the remaining 87% allocated for ecosystem development, aiming to gradually transfer network control to the community.
This design retains the usability of the points system while achieving ecosystem self-governance through on-chain governance, avoiding the centralized monopoly of traditional platforms.
2. Flynet: The Layer3 Infrastructure Dedicated to the Catering Industry
In February 2025, Blackbird launched Flynet, a Layer3 network based on the Coinbase Base chain, fully integrating payments, rewards, and data storage on-chain. Its four major innovations include:
Cost Revolution: Transaction fees are reduced from 3.75% of credit cards to 2%, with 1.5% directly returned to restaurants for customer operations;
Data Sovereignty: Consumption records are managed by users themselves, and restaurants can obtain precise portraits with authorization, ending the data hegemony of platforms;
Seamless Experience: Scan-to-pay and second-level on-chain, eliminating the pain point of checkout waiting;
Cross-Scenario Interoperability: Points and membership benefits can flow across restaurants, breaking the island effect of traditional loyalty programs.
3. Blackbird Club: From “Transactional Loyalty” to “Experiential Identification”
Unlike failed cases such as Starbucks’ NFT plan, Blackbird Club abandons pure points exchange and instead builds a tiered experience system. Members upgrade through dining frequency and community contributions to unlock exclusive benefits such as guaranteed reservations and secret menu tastings. The first batch of partner restaurants includes well-known brands such as Gjelina in New York and SPQR in San Francisco, reshaping user loyalty through “emotional connection + identity recognition.”
III. Disruption Logic: Why Blackbird May Become the Paradigm for Web3 Consumer Adoption?
1. Dual Genes of the Founding Team
Ben Leventhal has been deeply involved in the catering industry for 20 years. His founded Resy (acquired by American Express) and Eater (acquired by Vox) have respectively defined the industry standards for restaurant reservations and food media. This combination of “traditional industry insight + Web3 tech belief” enables him to accurately grasp the pain points of catering, rather than falling into technological fantasy.
2. “Physical-Digital” Symbiosis Model
Unlike traditional DeFi projects, Blackbird uses more than 600 physical restaurants as landing points. User behavior (dining, check-ins) and on-chain incentives (FLY rewards) form a closed loop. This “offline customer acquisition - online sedimentation - cross-scenario reuse” model avoids the bubble risk of pure virtual economy.
3. Differentiated Path Against Web2 Giants
Compared to platforms like Meituan and Dianping, which charge up to 25% commission, Flynet only charges a fixed fee of 2%, and part of the revenue is returned to restaurants. This “cost reduction + empowerment” strategy directly hits the core demands of small and medium-sized restaurants and may trigger industry-wide migration.
IV. Challenges and Future: Breaking the “Impossible Triangle” of Web3 Catering
Despite its broad prospects, Blackbird still needs to face three major tests:
User Education: The complexity of cryptocurrency payments and wallet management may hinder mass adoption. To this end, Blackbird has partnered with Privy to allow users to create custodial wallets with their phone numbers, lowering the entry barrier.
Regulatory Compliance: Catering involves multiple regulatory areas such as payments, taxes, and consumer protection, and it is necessary to balance the ideal of decentralization with the real legal framework.
Ecosystem Expansion: Currently covering only cities like New York and San Francisco, it needs to accelerate global layout to form a network effect.
Future Outlook: The team plans to open Flynet to developers to build derivative applications such as data markets and marketing tools, and expand the reward system to practitioners such as chefs and waitstaff, truly achieving “full-chain reconstruction of the catering value chain.”
Investment Institutions:
Project Team:
Conclusion: A Web3 Revolution “Eaten” into Reality
While most blockchain projects are still entangled in transaction mining and NFT speculation, Blackbird has chosen a more difficult but socially valuable path - to bring technology back to the essence of life. As Leventhal said: “The best restaurants make people feel a sense of belonging instantly, and Web3 should make this feeling transcend physical boundaries and become a sustainable digital civilization.” If his vision comes true, the catering industry may give birth to the first trillion-dollar on-chain economy, and the FLY tokens in our hands may just be the key to this revolution.
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