Blackbird, a Web3 catering platform, completes $11 million in seed round financing
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Odaily Translator |
Summary:
Summary:
Blackbird, a Web3 hotel and catering platform, has completed an $11 million seed round of financing, co-led by Union Square Ventures, Shine Capital and Multicoin Capital.
Blackbird founder Ben Leventhal previously co-founded restaurant startups Eater and Resy.
Serial entrepreneur Ben Leventhal's new Web3 project Blackbird has completed $11 million in seed funding.Leventhal previously co-founded two start-ups impacting the restaurant industry: food site Eater and meal reservation platform Resy.，Eater was acquired by Vox Media in 2013。
Resy was acquired by American Express in 2019
Blackbird’s round was co-led by Union Square Ventures, Shine Capital and Multicoin Capital, Leventhal said. According to the official announcement, Variant, Circle Ventures and IAC participated in the investment.
He added, "I don't think there's anything more exciting than when you can take an idea and create a real business and a real product. Maybe I'm not afraid of suffering, I really It never occurred to me to do anything else.”
What are Blackbirds?
Blackbird is a Web3 platform purpose-built for the tourism and hospitality industry, creating a direct connection between restaurants and guests through loyalty and membership services.
Blackbird is a Web3 platform purpose-built for the tourism and hospitality industry, creating a direct connection between restaurants and guests through loyalty and membership services.
“In many ways, my thinking is, how do I apply technology to restaurants to help them solve problems and create magical consumer experiences? So the tantalizing question is, how do we do this in an exciting way?” How to bring cryptocurrency into restaurants? I think Blackbird is very much a result of that thinking and conversation.”
Leventhal has observed that there is a growing disconnect between restaurants and consumers, with tech companies often sitting somewhere in the middle.
What exactly does this mean? Leventhal is still trying to find out. He will first explore loyalty and membership.
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Bringing Web3 to Consumers
Consumers do go to their favorite restaurants during the pandemic. Leventhal looks to Blackbird to help it build that relationship.
“You can think about loyalty and membership related products, offering rewards for dining frequency, consumption, various behaviors. Ultimately, we think these things will increase the lifetime value (LTV) of individual consumers. If we do that, obviously We will improve the entire restaurant industry."
Blackbird's technology stack has yet to be determined, but Leventhal expects that Web3 components will need to be abstracted away to make it appealing to mainstream consumers.
He added, “For crypto-native users, I hope they get excited about the idea of us applying this to specific use cases.”
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Oversubscribed Financing
Leventhal started financing Blackbird at the end of the bull market and then into the bear market, and the round was ultimately oversubscribed.
“I think we could have raised a lot more money,” Leventhal said. “Given the macroeconomic environment and the overall situation, it would probably be prudent to raise a little bit smaller than we would have expected, and be a little more conservative in valuation.”
According to The Block Research, Blackbird’s funding was higher than the average size of a blockchain industry seed round in August.
