Most tech diligence firms read a franchise target the way they read a SaaS company, and miss the parts that decide the return: what the fee stack actually funds, where the franchisees own the data, and how much of the platform is duct tape that only holds at the current unit count. I read it as someone who has operated inside a franchise system and built the software that runs one.
Pre-LOI Tech Screen $16,500 · Post-LOI Deep Dive $30k–$50k · Independence disclosed up front
The Gap
Generalist technology diligence firms know software, not franchising. They cannot tell a healthy technology fee from a captive one, and they read a mandated vendor stack as a feature rather than a liability the buyer inherits. Franchise consultants know the model but cannot open the platform and judge whether it scales. The read you actually need sits in the gap between them, and almost no one lives there.
The Engagements
A fast, cheap read before you commit capital, and a full-scope read once you have. Sized so the diligence never costs more than the risk it retires.
A fast read of the target’s technology posture, sourced primarily from its FDD plus public signal, so you know what you are walking into before you spend legal fees on a letter you might regret.
Everything the Screen surfaces, taken to the depth a confirmatory diligence file and an investment committee require, with the technology findings priced into the value-creation plan.
Screen vs Deep Dive
The Screen tells you whether to proceed. The Deep Dive tells you what it will cost to be right.
Fee architecture, the mandated vendor stack, data-rights posture, and system-health signals, read primarily from the FDD and public sources. Enough to price the risk into your LOI and decide go or no-go. No data-room access required.
Actual vendor contracts and switching costs, the data-rights and IP position tested against source documents, scalability judged against your growth thesis, integration risk for your environment, and a remediation cost read the value-creation plan can carry.
The Lens
These are the places a franchise technology stack decides the return, and the places a generalist read walks past. Each one is judged by function, not by vendor, and each one carries a business consequence and a cost.
Independence
On any given brand, this desk takes the capital side or the operating side. Never both. If the firm is advising an operator inside a category, it does not also sit on the buy side of that same brand for an investor, and the posture is disclosed to you up front, before any engagement letter is signed.
One posture per brand, capital-side or operating-side, disclosed before you engage. That is what lets you put the findings in front of your investment committee without an asterisk.
You are buying an independent read, not a relationship you have to discount for hidden incentives. If a conflict would compromise the work, you hear it in the first conversation, not after the invoice.
How It Works
Who It’s For
This desk works with the investors underwriting franchise brands, usually at one of these moments:
If the Pre-LOI Screen clears the target and you move to a full Post-LOI Deep Dive on the same brand, the $16,500 Screen fee is credited toward the Deep Dive. You pay for the fast read once, and it becomes the down payment on the deep one. If the Screen tells you to walk, you saved the legal spend on an LOI you would have regretted.
Request a Screen. On the first call you will hear the independence posture on your target, and whether this desk is the right read for the deal.
Request a Screen →