Ben Leventhal

Founder & CEO Blackbird Labs

Last Reviewed: September 25, 2026

Executive Summary

Ben Leventhal is the founder and chief executive of Blackbird Labs, a New York company building a loyalty and payments network for independent restaurants. Diners earn and spend $FLY points through the Blackbird app, and Blackbird processes restaurant payments on its own Flynet network, which Leventhal says can cut restaurants’ processing costs by more than half. Blackbird is the third restaurant business he has founded or co-founded. He co-founded Eater in 2005, and in 2014 co-founded Resy, the reservations platform he ran as CEO until American Express bought it in 2019. Blackbird was founded in 2022 and has raised $85 million from Spark Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures, Amex Ventures and others. By September 2026 it reported more than 2,500 restaurants on the network, and Leventhal was making its case for digital-asset payments to Congress.

Career Highlights

• Founder and CEO of Blackbird Labs, listed as its executive officer, director and president in its 2022 SEC Form D.
• Raised a $24 million Series A in 2023 and a $50 million round led by Spark Capital in April 2025, for $85 million in total.
• Launched Blackbird Pay and the Flynet payments network in July 2024, with restaurants paying on average 2% per transaction, according to the company.
• Co-founded Resy in 2014 and served as its CEO. American Express acquired Resy in 2019.
• Co-founded Eater with Lockhart Steele in 2005. Vox acquired it in 2013.
• Testified before a U.S. House subcommittee in September 2026 on how digital assets could reduce restaurants’ payment costs.

Professional Journey

Leventhal grew up in Westchester, New York, and describes restaurants as his “happy place” from childhood. He studied finance at George Washington University. In 2005 he and Lockhart Steele started Eater, which covered restaurants in close detail, from the chef and owner down to the design of the logo, as dynamic businesses worth reporting on. Vox acquired Eater in 2013. From 2009 to 2011 Leventhal was executive editor of The Feast, an NBCUniversal restaurant platform that tried to rate every restaurant on a single scale. He later said the idea was right but the timing and execution were not.

In 2014 he co-founded Resy, a mobile-first reservations platform that competed with OpenTable. Its 2014 SEC filing lists him as president and a director, alongside Gary Vaynerchuk. He led Resy as chief executive, and American Express acquired it in 2019. He remains a strategic advisor to Resy, according to a December 2025 interview.

He founded Blackbird Labs in New York in 2022. It raised $11 million in its first year, with Fred Wilson, Mo Koyfman and Marguerite Mariscal named as directors in its filing. Its premise, as he puts it, is that airlines and credit cards do loyalty well, restaurants should too, and most restaurants struggle to win and keep customers. In Blackbird, members earn $FLY points at participating restaurants, the restaurant sees who is dining and their history, and the check can be settled in the app. The points are recorded on a blockchain but, as Leventhal puts it, are best understood as loyalty points and cannot be cashed out. In July 2024 Blackbird launched Blackbird Pay on Flynet, a payments layer built on Coinbase’s Base network. In April 2025 it raised $50 million led by Spark Capital to launch Blackbird Club, a cross-restaurant points service, and to expand beyond New York, San Francisco and Charleston.

By September 2026 Blackbird was in six markets with more than 2,500 restaurants. That month Leventhal testified before a U.S. House subcommittee that on-chain payments could cut restaurants’ processing costs by more than half, and asked Congress for clear rules on digital assets.

Education

Leventhal studied finance at The George Washington University, according to a December 2025 interview. No degree or graduation year was found in a primary source.