Kuma Ani vs Papa Murphy's

Papa Murphy’s is the play, and it’s not close. The TAM dimension alone decides this: 1,119 franchised units against a brand with zero. Even with a -2.3% unit contraction, that installed base is a recurring-revenue quarry. AUV sits at $680k, which means operators have enough throughput to justify a POS + scheduling + back-office stack, not just a tablet and a prayer. The 5% royalty and 2% ad fund tell you margins are already carved out, so a vendor pitch lands on labor savings and ticket uplift, not begging for budget that doesn’t exist.

The tradeoff is timing versus terrain. Kuma Ani’s 2026 FDD is fresh, but that’s a theoretical advantage on a two-unit blank canvas—zero franchised doors, zero procurement urgency, and a $25k entry fee that attracts owner-operators who’ll run on spreadsheets. Papa Murphy’s filing is overdue, which means you’re selling into a stale disclosure cycle, but the terrain is 1,119 live locations with an approved-supplier model that forces tech through a known gate. You can build a compliance case later; you can’t invent 1,100 prospects.

Verdict: Papa Murphy’s gives you a real, if aging, franchise fleet to sell into; Kuma Ani is a concept, not a market.