Our Review and Rating Standards

Invest Clearly is an independent review platform for private market sponsors. This page describes how we collect reviews, conduct the Investor Verification Process, and calculate the ratings you see across the platform.

Our rating methodology is applied uniformly to every sponsor, regardless of whether the sponsor maintains a free or paid Invest Clearly profile. Payment to Invest Clearly affects where a sponsor’s profile appears on the platform (Featured and Promoted placements), profile features, and tools available to the sponsor in their admin center. It does not and cannot affect how a sponsor’s reviews or ratings are calculated, moderated, or displayed within organic results.

Who Writes Reviews

Every published review has an accepted investor verification status for that reviewer and Sponsor relationship under the Investor Verification Process described below. Reviewers may choose to have a review published anonymously, in which case “Verified Investor” appears instead of the reviewer’s name. “Verified Investor” is only that anonymous public display label; it is not a separate process, tier, certification, or broader verification standard.

How Reviews Are Collected

Reviewers submit reviews through the Invest Clearly website. A reviewer may arrive at the site organically, through a referral, through an advertisement, or at the suggestion of a Sponsor with which the reviewer has or had an investment relationship. Regardless of how a reviewer arrives, every published review must have an accepted investor verification status for that reviewer and Sponsor relationship, and every submission is separately subject to review moderation.

Invest Clearly does not offer or provide incentives for reviews. Review activity does not earn or unlock access, upgrades, discounts, or any other product benefit.

Investor Verification Process

Every reviewer completes the Investor Verification Process, and every published review must have an accepted investor verification status for that reviewer and Sponsor relationship. Invest Clearly reviews submitted evidence only to determine whether it reasonably substantiates an investment relationship between the reviewer and the relevant Sponsor. Invest Clearly does not verify the reviewer as a person, the Sponsor, the investment, or the review, including the review’s truth, accuracy, completeness, fairness, substance, rating, or conclusions. Reviews reflect the opinions and experiences of their authors.

Relationship evidence may be submitted by the reviewer or by a Sponsor. Both paths use the same limited standard described above. A Sponsor submission does not create or publish a review, and the investor remains free to decide whether to create an account or submit a review. The source of the evidence does not change review moderation, rating treatment, or the reviewer’s anonymous display choice.

Before a review is published, it must have an accepted investor verification status for that reviewer and Sponsor relationship, based only on whether submitted evidence reasonably substantiates that relationship. Separately, review moderation considers whether:

The reviewer is not an employee of the sponsor or any affiliated or vertically integrated property management company.
The reviewer has disclosed any material relationship with the sponsor (for example, agency partners or family, or individuals with other financial relationships beyond the investment itself)
The review complies with Invest Clearly’s Community Guidelines

Invest Clearly reviews submitted supporting evidence only to determine whether it reasonably substantiates the specific investment relationship between the reviewer and Sponsor. Proprietary moderation signals are separate from that limited relationship determination. If the evidence does not reasonably substantiate the relationship, Invest Clearly does not accept an investor verification status for that relationship and the review is not eligible for publication. Invest Clearly also reserves the right to reject or remove a review when our proprietary signals alert the moderation team that a submission may be fraudulent.

While a reviewer may not delete their own review after it’s been published, they can update it, which triggers a second round of moderation.

After a Review Is Published

Sponsor responses. Sponsors may publicly respond to any review on their Invest Clearly profile. Sponsor responses appear alongside the original review and are visible to all users who can see the review itself. Responses give sponsors an opportunity to acknowledge, contextualize, or address the concerns raised in a review. Responses are subject to Invest Clearly’s Community Guidelines.

Review updates. Reviewers may update their reviews after publication. When a review is updated, both the original review and the updated review remain publicly visible. This preserves the integrity of the historical record while allowing reviewers to reflect changes in their experience over time. Updated reviews go through a second round of moderation before the update is published.

Appeals and Disputes

Invest Clearly does not adjudicate disputes between sponsors and reviewers regarding the content, opinions, or characterizations expressed in a review. Reviews reflect the experiences and opinions of their authors. Because Invest Clearly does not verify the content of reviews, we are not in a position to determine whether a reviewer’s account of their experience is accurate, fair, or complete. Invest Clearly operates as an interactive computer service under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. § 230) and is not the publisher or speaker of any review submitted by a user.

A published review will remain on the platform unless the review has been the subject of an order from a court of competent jurisdiction requiring its removal. The Investor Verification Process described above addresses only the review publication condition tied to the relevant reviewer and Sponsor relationship. A published review has an accepted investor verification status for that relationship because submitted evidence reasonably substantiated it. The status does not verify the reviewer, Sponsor, investment, or review.

Invest Clearly does not remove reviews based on:

Disagreement with the reviewer’s opinions, characterizations, or conclusions
Claims that the review is unfair, biased, or one-sided
Claims that the review damages the sponsor’s reputation or business interests
Requests to remove negative ratings while leaving positive ones intact
The author’s request

Invest Clearly may remove or modify a review when:

The sponsor demonstrates the reviewer did not have a genuine investment relationship with the sponsor
The review is determined by our moderation team to be fraudulent based on our proprietary signals
The review violates Invest Clearly’s Community Guidelines
The review has been the subject of an order from a court of competent jurisdiction requiring its removal

The Six Rating Components

Every review on Invest Clearly includes six component ratings organized into two phases of the investor experience. Each component is rated on a 1-to-5 star scale.

Pre-Funding

Pre-Investment Communication. How timely, clear, and helpful the sponsor was in communicating with the investor before the investment was made.

Pre-Investment Transparency. How open and straightforward the sponsor was about risks, fees, and key deal terms before the investment was made.

Post-Funding

Post-Investment Communication. How consistent and informative the sponsor has been since the investment was made.

Execution of Business Plan. How well the sponsor has delivered on the original strategy and business plan.

Distribution & Financial Outcomes. How satisfied the investor has been with distributions, returns, and progress toward projected financial outcomes.

Likelihood to Reinvest. How likely the investor would be to invest again with this sponsor based on their experience.

The questionnaire is designed to make it equally easy for reviewers to provide favorable and unfavorable responses. It is not structured to produce any predetermined result.

The Overall Rating

In addition to the six component ratings, every reviewer provides a separate Overall Rating on a 1-to-5 star scale. The Overall Rating is selected independently by the reviewer. It is not calculated, aggregated, or weighted from the six component scores. It represents the reviewer’s holistic judgment of their experience with the sponsor.

Sponsor-level aggregate ratings displayed on Invest Clearly are based on Overall Ratings from published reviews with an accepted investor verification status for the applicable reviewer and Sponsor relationship. Component scores are reported separately and are never blended into the Overall Rating.

Rating Breakdowns by Component

Aggregate ratings for each of the six components are available to investors on paid Invest Clearly subscription tiers. All other users see a sponsor’s aggregate Overall Rating and total review count.

This access structure governs only the depth of detail available to the person viewing a profile. It does not affect which reviews are collected, how Invest Clearly determines investor verification status for a specific reviewer and Sponsor relationship, or how aggregate ratings are calculated.

How Aggregate Ratings Are Displayed

A sponsor’s aggregate Overall Rating is displayed on their profile as soon as they have at least one published review with an accepted investor verification status for the relationship between its author and Sponsor.

Aggregate Overall Ratings are calculated as a simple average of the Overall Ratings submitted across all reviews for a given sponsor. Invest Clearly does not apply recency weighting, subscription-tier weighting, or any other adjustment to aggregate ratings. Every review counts equally.

Quarterly Badges

Invest Clearly awards quarterly badges to sponsors who meet all of the following criteria for a given quarter:

A minimum of five total reviews, each with an accepted investor verification status for the applicable reviewer and Sponsor relationship
At least one new review submitted during the quarter
An average Overall Rating of 4.0 stars or higher for reviews submitted during the quarter
An aggregate (all-time) Overall Rating of 4.0 stars or higher

Badge eligibility is determined by the same methodology applied to every sponsor. Paid subscription status does not influence badge eligibility. Badges are earned, not purchased.

Compliance With the SEC Marketing Rule

Invest Clearly is not an investment adviser and is not regulated directly by the SEC Marketing Rule (Rule 206(4)-1 of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940). Invest Clearly operates as an independent third-party rating aggregator: reviewers submit ratings, and Invest Clearly publishes and aggregates ratings through reviews with an accepted investor verification status for the applicable reviewer and Sponsor relationship. Our questionnaire is structured to make it equally easy for reviewers to provide favorable and unfavorable responses and is not designed to produce any predetermined result.

Sponsors are solely responsible for complying with all applicable laws and regulations, including the SEC Marketing Rule, when referencing Invest Clearly ratings, badges, reviews, or other platform content in external marketing materials.

Questions

Questions about our review and rating standards can be directed to support@investclearly.com.