Ben Leventhal's Blackbird quietly debuts

The company teases the product's capabilities with its first project announcement; here's what we know so far

“Wonder awaits.” 

That’s according to a Wednesday announcement written by Blackbird founder Ben Leventhal, giving us a peek at what Blackbird is, exactly. Leventhal explained the company’s first project, a friends and family program for a Brooklyn diner called Gertie. 

Screenshots courtesy of Blackbird

When the Resy founder announced his new business last fall, he was big on possibility but light on details. Here’s what Leventhal told me about Blackbird in October:

“It will focus on loyalty, memberships, and payment in the restaurant industry. We think there is this very strong natural connection between consumers — guests— and restaurants. And so far restaurants don’t have a ton of technology to scale those relationships. Hopefully Blackbird will help them do that and will create much stronger, much more long-term relationships between guests and restaurants.” 

There’s excitement. In a Wednesday blog post, Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson, an investor in the company’s $11 million seed round, called Blackbird awesome. 

Of course, founders and their backers love to talk about the power and potential of the thing they’re building. New things are exciting! Unfortunately, all the excitement — scripted or otherwise — makes it tricky to decipher what the thing might do.

This week, we finally got a first look. Here’s what we know so far: 

Blackbird is an attempt to scale hospitality.