Built by R&D experts - for the companies doing the work

Ricerca is Italian for research. We picked the name because that is the whole job: finding the research inside a company’s ordinary year of work, and proving it well enough to survive a reading by someone paid to be skeptical.

We started Ricerca on one conviction - an R&D tax credit study should be fast and defensible. Until recently you picked one.

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A pencil and ruler resting on a dimensioned technical drawing — Finding the research inside an ordinary year of work, and proving it well enough to survive a skeptical reading.Photo by Sven Mieke on Unsplash

Why we built it

Two bad options

Every company we talked to had been offered the same pair of trade-offs - and neither one produces a study that is both affordable and defensible.

Traditional consultants

Real expertise, delivered slowly. Months of interviews and email chases, a fee whose basis you never see, and a study you never see the inside of.

Automation-only software

Fast and cheap, and thin where it counts: activities missed because nobody asked the follow-up question, and documentation that reads like a form letter to the one reader who matters.

The Ricerca answer

AI does the volume. People do the judgment.

Machines are good at the parts of a study that are large and repetitive - reading payroll and ledger exports, matching engineering activity to projects, drafting first-pass narratives, running the computation both ways. That work used to consume most of the fee and most of the calendar.

People are good at the parts that decide whether a claim holds: what counts as a business component, where the technical uncertainty actually was, which costs are in and which are out, and how much of a gray area is worth claiming. Our R&D experts make those calls, and review and finalize the study before it is issued - with substantiation mapped to the four-part test and each business component, and backed by Audit Protection.

The rules moved in 2025, so we work both sides of the same base: the §41 credit and the §174A domestic R&E deduction restored by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA).

Why we’re different

What sets a Ricerca study apart

Six things we do differently. Each one links to the page that shows you the substance behind it.

Expert-finalized studies

Experienced R&D experts review and finalize every study before it is issued. Software drafts; people sign off.

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Audit Protection included

If the IRS examines the R&D claim, we prepare the response and defend the study’s technical position - limited to the R&D study and credits.

What that covers

Human-in-the-loop by design

AI compresses intake, parsing, and drafting. Every qualification call and every dollar of QRE is a human decision.

See the platform

Substantiation, not summaries

Evidence is mapped to each business component and to the four-part test of IRC §41(d) - the way an examiner reads a study.

The four-part test

Confidentiality enforced in code

Taxpayer-identifying data is redacted before AI processing, connectors are read-only, and your data never trains public models.

How we secure data

Current on §174A

Domestic R&E expensing came back as §174A under OBBBA. We capture the deduction and the credit together - not one this year and the other next.

Section 174A explained

Compare approaches in detail

How we work

Three commitments you can hold us to

Not values-poster material - these are the rules we apply when a study gets difficult.

01 Say less, not more: §41 is fact-specific. Where the law is genuinely uncertain we hedge in writing rather than sell certainty we cannot support - because an aggressive number you cannot defend is not a benefit.
02 Show the work: Every figure in a Ricerca study traces to a source: a payroll record, a ledger line, a ticket, a person. If we cannot show where a number came from, it does not go in the study.
03 Stand behind it: Audit Protection is included with every study, not sold as an upgrade. Preparing the defense is part of preparing the claim.

Who we work with

Companies whose engineers spend the year resolving things nobody had a settled answer for. §41 never mentions an industry; these are four of the seven where we have written the evidence patterns down in full.

Photographs by Christina @ wocintechchat.com, Jelifer Maniago, Magnus Engø, Marsumilae on Unsplash.

Pre-revenue startups included - a qualified small business may be able to apply part of the credit against payroll tax under §41(h) instead of waiting for taxable income. Not sure where you fit? Start with the industry hub.

The company

The company behind Ricerca

Ricerca is owned and operated by Francette, LLC, a Pennsylvania limited liability company, founded in 2025. We serve companies anywhere in the United States, and we are not a law firm.

Questions, partnerships, security reviews, or press - [email protected]. We typically reply within one business day. Already working with us? Sign in to your portal.

How pricing works

After the free scoping estimate you get a written quote before any work begins. The quote is fixed at engagement-letter signature, and there is no obligation to go ahead.

Low angle along the deck of a yellow Pittsburgh suspension bridge into the evening sun — Pennsylvania. Francette, LLC is the Pennsylvania limited liability company that owns and operates Ricerca; the work is done from here, for clients anywhere in the United States.Photo by Willie Shaw on Unsplash

Two machined aluminum flange parts resting on their own engineering drawings — And this is the raw material: the sketches, notebooks, and iterations an engineering year leaves behind, before any of it becomes a substantiated figure.Photo by EnCata PD on Unsplash

Why there are no stock team photos here

No client logos we haven’t been given permission to use. No star ratings we can’t show you the source of. No credentials we don’t hold. A firm that will invent proof on its own website will invent it in your study, and a study built on invented proof is exactly the kind that fails an examination.

What we publish instead is the method: how a study is built, what it is built to withstand, and where the limits of our promises are.

Let’s see what your R&D is worth

Tell us about the work your team did this year. We’ll scope a study, show you what the §41 credit and the §174A deduction could capture, and give you pricing for your situation - free, and no obligation.

[email protected] We typically reply within one business day.

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