What Clave does

Clave (legal entity Arialy Inc., headquartered in South Miami, Florida) builds an AI-powered operations platform targeted at multi-unit quick-service restaurant (QSR) franchise operators. The company was founded in 2025 by brothers Tadeo and Mateo Acosta-Rubio, who grew up inside their family's ChurroMania franchise business and previously exited a prior venture (Stuvi) in early 2025. The platform — fronted by a named AI assistant called James — unifies data from existing customer systems (POS, labor scheduling, inventory, ERP, delivery platforms, and accounting software) into a single conversational and voice-enabled interface, enabling operators to query performance, receive automated daily and weekly summaries, surface anomalies, and execute authorized actions such as price adjustments and shift reschedules. Documented integrations include Aloha POS, OLO delivery platform, and QuickBooks Online, with the underlying stack composed of Anthropic Claude and Google Gemini for language, OpenAI embeddings, Deepgram and ElevenLabs for voice, OpenRouter for model routing, and Supabase and Railway for data and hosting.

Clave distributes exclusively through a direct enterprise sales motion: the product is invite-only, gated behind a demo request flow, and priced on annual subscription terms negotiated per franchise. Go-to-market focuses on multi-unit franchisees and operator-investors, with named deployment evidence at ChurroMania (45 stores), Capriotti's (14 stores), and Rogers (4 stores in Latin America), and logo placement for Dunkin, Auntie Anne's, Jamba Juice, and Ben & Jerry's. The company closed a $1M pre-seed round in April 2026 from Tetrad VC, Geek VC, Hustle Fund, Untapped Capital, and a syndicate of QSR franchising operators and scouts from a16z and Bain Capital, and is pursuing SOC 2 Type II certification to enable broader enterprise procurement.

Name

Clave

Legal name

Arialy Inc.

Website

https://tryclave.ai

Company type

Private

Founded year

2025

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Clave (Arialy Inc.) is an AI-powered operations platform for multi-unit QSR franchise operators that unifies POS, labor, inventory, ERP, and accounting data into a conversational assistant named James, sold enterprise-only via annual subscriptions.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Miami

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Enterprise SaaS Subscription: Subscription-based SaaS platform for QSR franchise operators. The company offers enterprise access with pricing at their discretion. Access is granted through enterprise agreements where organizations are onboarded via admin accounts. The model targets multi-unit franchise operators managing multiple store locations.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Clave provides an AI-powered operations platform for quick-service restaurant (QSR) franchise operators that unifies POS, labor, inventory, ERP, and accounting data into a conversational interface. The platform's named AI assistant "James" answers natural-language queries, generates automated daily/weekly reports, sends proactive alerts, and executes authorized actions such as adjusting pricing and rescheduling shifts across multi-location franchise networks.

Product overview

Clave is a unified AI-powered operations platform for QSR franchises. The core product, Clave - QSR Franchise AI, integrates with existing POS, inventory, labor, ERP, and accounting systems (including Aloha, OLO, and QuickBooks) to consolidate franchise data. Named AI assistant James serves as the primary interface, enabling natural language queries, automated reporting, anomaly detection, and autonomous actions across multiple store locations. The platform is enterprise-focused, available via invite-only, and currently in pre-seed stage.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• James: AI assistant for QSR franchises that provides real-time insights, answers questions, sends reports, adjusts pricing, and reschedules shifts.

Products and services

• Clave - QSR Franchise AI Platform AI-powered operations assistant platform for quick-service restaurant franchise operators that unifies POS, labor, inventory, ERP, and financial data into a single conversational interface, providing real-time insights, automated reports, and actionable recommendations across multi-location franchise networks.
• James AI Assistant Named AI assistant that acts as the conversational interface for franchise operations, allowing QSR operators to ask natural-language questions about sales, labor, and performance; generates automated daily and weekly reports, sends proactive alerts, and executes authorized actions such as pricing adjustments and shift reschedules.

Quantifiable outcome

• 22 hours saved monthly per operator (Capriotti's 14-store case)
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers7 records

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration3 records

AI capability9 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Twelve partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Anthropic (Claude)coreTechnology or IntegrationAI language model provider used for generating assistant responses. Clave sends user messages and operational data to Claude for natural language processing and response generation.
• Google (Gemini)coreTechnology or IntegrationAI language model provider used for generating assistant responses as part of Clave's multi-model AI routing strategy.
• OpenRoutercoreTechnology or IntegrationAI model routing service that routes requests to appropriate AI model providers (Anthropic, Google) on Clave's behalf.
• SupabasecoreTechnology or IntegrationCloud hosting and database provider that stores and processes Clave's account, business, and operational data.
• RailwaycoreTechnology or IntegrationCloud hosting platform used to store and process Clave's account, business, and operational data.
• DeepgramcoreTechnology or IntegrationSpeech-to-text voice service provider used during voice assistant sessions for converting spoken input to text.
• ElevenLabscoreTechnology or IntegrationText-to-speech voice service provider used for voice assistant sessions to convert AI responses to spoken output.
• DailycoreTechnology or IntegrationReal-time audio transport service provider used during voice assistant sessions.
• OpenAIcoreTechnology or IntegrationUsed for generating text embeddings to index connected documents for semantic search functionality.
• Aloha POScoreTechnology or IntegrationPoint-of-sale system integrated with Clave. Capriotti's case study shows integration with Aloha across 14 store locations for daily performance tracking.
• OLOcoreTechnology or IntegrationDelivery and ordering platform integrated with Clave. Capriotti's case study shows OLO integration across 14 locations to track delivery performance and identify underperforming channels.
• QuickBookscoreTechnology or IntegrationAccounting software integrated with Clave for financial data synchronization including invoices, sales receipts, expenses, and financial reports.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Emerging players

• 7shifts: Employee scheduling, team management, and labor analytics tool purpose-built for restaurants. Competes with the labor portion of Clave's unified-data layer and is increasingly expanding into broader restaurant operations.
• MarginEdge: Restaurant invoice and cost-management platform providing daily food-cost, inventory, and reporting for multi-unit operators. Overlaps with Clave's accounting/inventory data unification and reporting automation capabilities.

Broad incumbents

• Toast: Dominant POS and restaurant operations platform for full-service and QSR operators. Toast offers POS, labor, inventory, and analytics modules that increasingly overlap with Clave's unified-ops value proposition, making it the most strategically threatening incumbent.
• Lightspeed Restaurant: Cloud POS and operations platform serving QSR and table-service restaurants with built-in reporting and analytics. Competes with Clave on the integrated-restaurant-ops category and benefits from an established international footprint.
• Square for Restaurants: Block-owned POS and restaurant operations suite with labor, inventory, and analytics features targeting QSR and fast-casual operators. A broad incumbent that competes with Clave for the same multi-unit QSR buyer.

Direct peers

• Restaurant365: Cloud-based restaurant management platform combining POS, accounting, inventory, and reporting for multi-unit operators. Closely comparable to Clave on the back-office/analytics layer, with established scale in the franchise segment.
• Crunchtime: Restaurant operations platform focused on inventory, food cost, labor, and scheduling for multi-unit restaurant groups. Directly comparable to Clave in addressing fragmented operational data for QSR and casual-dining franchise operators.
• HotSchedules (by Fourth): Restaurant workforce management, inventory, and forecasting platform serving multi-unit restaurant brands. Directly comparable to Clave on labor and operational data unification for franchise operators.

Others

• Avero (now part of Toast): Restaurant data analytics platform historically focused on sales, labor, and operational benchmarking for multi-unit operators. Now under Toast, it represents a bundled competitive threat to standalone analytics tools like Clave.
• Olo: Enterprise ordering and delivery platform used by major restaurant brands. Both a current Clave integration partner (per Capriotti's case study) and a potential competitor if it expands into broader restaurant-operations analytics.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors7 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Clave