Clearly provides an interactive platform that analyzes and explains Franchise Disclosure Documents (FDDs) for over 1,600 brands, allowing users to understand fees, obligations, and restrictions in clear, tabular formats. Users can evaluate single or multiple franchise opportunities, compare side‑by‑side, and track changes over time, with AI‑driven navigation that jumps to specific sections of an FDD. The service is aimed at first‑time buyers, multi‑unit investors, brokers, and advisors seeking a consistent decision‑making framework.
Funding
Funding not disclosed
Founders
Product
Problem
Franchise Disclosure Documents (FDDs) are dense legal filings that contain critical fees, obligations, and restrictions, but they are difficult for buyers, brokers, and investors to parse and compare across brands.
Solution
Clearly offers an interactive platform that extracts and explains data from over 1,600 FDDs, presenting the information in standardized tables and side‑by‑side comparisons. Users can navigate the documents with an AI assistant, Clara, which jumps to specific sections and retains conversational context. The platform tracks changes across filing years, allowing stakeholders to monitor trends and evaluate multiple opportunities over time. Saved research and a personal library let users build a permanent reference asset for ongoing due‑diligence. All features are accessible through a web interface without the need for credit‑card commitment for basic access.
Target Audience
Primary users are prospective franchisees, multi‑unit buyers, franchise brokers, and investment advisors who need reliable, comparable FDD data to assess franchise opportunities.
Features
- AI‑driven navigation that jumps to exact pages and paragraphs within any FDD
- Consistent data extraction and presentation of fees, obligations, and restrictions in easy‑to‑read tables
- Side‑by‑side comparison of up to three brands, with filters for category, investment level, and system size
- Change‑tracking across filing years to highlight trends and updates in franchise terms
- Personal research library for saving, organizing, and revisiting brand analyses
- Free Explorer tier providing full directory access, key stats, and limited brand comparisons