Company
Company name
Paper AI
Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.
The Open Source Collaborative AI Research Platform
Company URL, if any
https://www.paperai.pro/
Demo Video
https://youtu.be/1T1kXq02W9k
Please provide a link to the product, if any
https://ipaperai.vercel.app/
What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.
We built an innovative web application that transforms academic research experience, allowing users to collaborate on research papers without geographical barriers and efficiently. Researchers and scholars often face challenges like information overload and time-consuming literature review. Aside from making personal notes, Paper Ai enables users to annotate, discuss collaboratively and ask AI for quick summary on complex points across a piece of article or research paper. It fosters a shared learning ecosystem and encourages collaboration across disciplines and geographic boundaries.
Our goal is to be the go-to platform for academic collaboration and research enhancement. We want to help all learners navigate research and complex articles in a way that is both enjoyable and fulfilling.
Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?
I currently live in Uzbekistan. After YC, the company would be based in Silicon Valley, USA.
Explain your decision regarding location.
In a micro view, Silicon Valley is where most tech giant companies are based. By having our headquarters in Silicon Valley, we will have access to a rich tech environment and valuable resources. From a macro perspective, the USA is home to many popular graduate universities, which are among our target users. Therefore, locating ourselves in the USA will make it easier to reach these early adopters.
Progress:
How far along are you?
- Founding team of 2 is assembled.
- 90% of the MVP is complete.
- Received positive feedback from professors and undergraduates, especially those working on research papers and exams.
- Regularly gather feedback through engagement on X (formerly Twitter).
- Ranked in the top 100 submission of the IBM TechXchange Pre-Conference WatsonX Hackathon 2024 out of thousands of submissions
How long have each of you been working on this? How much of that has been full-time? Please explain.
Each of us have been working on this project for 1,5 months. I have been working full-time (almost dropped out from my college) on this from the beginning while the co-founder has been contributing part-time balancing her professional commitments.
What tech stack are you using, or planning to use, to build this product?
We build this product with TypeScript and Tailwind CSS on scalable cloud infrastructure like Google's Cloud Services and Vercel to efficiently handle increasing user loads. It utilizes the open-source Adobe PDF Embed API as the core of the platform, for seamless interaction with PDF documents. The platform's multilingual support and AI Voice Assistant are powered by ElevenLabs. We also use AI services like OpenAI's latest language models and the AI/ML API with 99.99% uptime ensures our AI capabilities adjust to demand, facilitating efficient scaling. We integrate with Clerk for user authentication. We also use IndexedDB for client-side storage ensuring that user data is not collected and maintaining data security.
Are people using your product?
Yes. We have [x] users registered accounts on our platform and 1 active user.
We have 9 users registered accounts on our platform and 1 active user. Currently, we're testing our platform functionalities. So we don't have any users who are paying.
Do you have revenue?
No, because our product is offered to the public for free at this stage.
If you are applying with the same idea as a previous batch, did anything change? If you applied with a different idea, why did you pivot and what did you learn from the last idea?
Not applicable.
If you have already participated or committed to participate in an incubator, "accelerator" or "pre-accelerator" program, please tell us about it.
Not applicable.
Idea
Why did you pick this idea to work on? Do you have domain expertise in this area? How do you know people need what you're making?
I wanted a platform where I could collaborate with other peers globally when working on research papers. Till date, I have a 5-year experience in AI and software engineering industries. Previously, I worked for Souk e-commerce startup and contributed to open-source projects such as Langflow and Anarchy Labs. I also authored 5 research papers. We reach out to beta users via direct feedback and through our global community platform on discord.
Who are your competitors? What do you understand about your business that they don't?
Mendeley, Zotero, EndNote, ReadCube Paper and Paperpile are our key competitors.
In common, these platforms offer annotation and highlighting, reference management, cross-platform support, cloud storage and pdf reader. On top of that, what differentiates PaperAI from the rest is we also offer collaborative annotation, real-time collaboration, AI integration such as voice assistant for real-time notification update and we are open-source which enable us for wider adoption and faster development.
How do or will you make money? How much could you make?
We generate revenue by charging subscriptions. If we charge $6.66 per month for a subscription, we need 1.21million paid customers to generate $100million annually which represents 39% of the graduate students pool in the US.
Which category best applies to your company?
Productivity
If you had any other ideas you considered applying with, please list them. One may be something we've been waiting for. Often when we fund people it's to do something they list here and not in the main application.
CoMedAI (Collaborative Medicine with AI) makes brain MRI diagnosis more accurate, faster, and more affordable. By seamlessly integrating two models; CNN and NLP, we've confirmed that we can achieve even higher accuracy. Currently, our paper is under peer review, and our platform has been launched for testing purposes only. We have secured contracts with 1,400 hospitals and clinics. With a subscription cost of $220 USD for the first two years, integrating into these hospitals' workflows can generate $3,696,000 USD in revenue.
Equity:
Have you formed ANY legal entity yet?
No. We have not formed the company yet. The planned equity ownership breakdown among the founders is as follows:
- Ibrohim (Co-Founder, CEO & CTO): 50%
- Wei (Co-Founder, CLO & COO): 50%
We currently do not have employees or other proposed stockholders but plan to allocate equity for future team members and investors.
Have you taken any investment yet?
No.
Are you currently fundraising?
Yes, we are actively seeking funding to expand our operations.
Curious:
What convinced you to apply to Y Combinator? Did someone encourage you to apply? Have you been to any YC events?
We apply to Y Combinator because of its reputation for empowering startups with the resources, mentorship, and network they need to succeed. We are convinced that the support at YC, from fundraising to scaling, aligns perfectly with our vision for growth. The shared experiences and success stories of YC companies like Airbnb and Coinbase have inspired us to take the leap and apply though we have not yet attended any YC events.
How did you hear about Y Combinator?
News and YC alumni
How long have the founders known one another and how did you meet? Have any of the founders not met in person?
Wei and I met in July 2023 at a hackathon where we teamed up to work on Langflow and won third place. Inspired by our collaboration, we began developing PaperAI to revolutionize the research process. Our project ranked in the top 100 submissions of the IBM TechXchange Pre-Conference WatsonX Hackathon 2024 out of thousands of entries. We have known each other for several months, have not met in person, and have been working closely together since then.
Who writes code, or does other technical work on your product? Was any of it done by a non-founder? Please explain.
I am the sole person who has written all the code and handled all technical development for our product. No non-founders have contributed to the technical work.
I've been in IT and AI stuff for 5+ years. I've 4+ years of research experience. I've 2+ years of hands-on experience in different fields including web/mobile app and software development, UI/UX design, and AI model training & tuning. I usually code in Python, Typescript/Javascript, Dart and have intermediate knowledge in Java, C/C++, R, Swift, GraphQL, PostgreSQL, Rust. I use frameworks such as Flutter, React, Django, Flask, FastAPI, Next.js, Tauri, PyTorch, and TensorFlow. I prefer the following tools: Redux, Postman, Vercel, Jira, Git, Colab, Firebase, Docker, Tailwind CSS, and ChatGPT.
At the moment, I am a senior Computer Science (Software Engineering) student with extensive experience in AI, Neuroscience, and Quantum Computing. I'm the 1st AI/ML API Regional Ambassador in Central Asia. I'm the Founder & CEO at Open Community, where 160+ developers build AI-powered Open-source tools for the benefit of humanity. I authored 5+ research papers, participated in 60+ hackathons, and collaborated with 100+ industry leaders. I'm also an Open Source contributor at Anarchy Labs (477+ stars on Github), Langflow (31,2K+ stars on Github). Over the last 2 years he has mentored & facilitated 200K+ both students and developers.
(ps: Almost dropped out from my college)
Are you looking for a cofounder?
No, I have a Co-founder.
Speech script:
[I] Hello there! I am Ibrohim and
[W] I am Wei. We're the co-founders of Paper AI.
[I] We're building Paper AI, an all-in-one research platform that leverages AI to streamline literature reviews and empower collaboration for researchers and scholars.
[W] Researchers, scholars, and students—especially those in fields like law—often face information overload and time-consuming tasks.. Summarizing and collaborating on research can take hours, if not days. This inefficiency limits productivity and slows the pace of innovation. [I] At Paper AI, we use AI to help users collaborate and engage with challenging topics in real-time, ensuring an engaging learning experience. The platform also integrates AI to quickly search for complex concepts and provide voice notifications for any updates. [W] Our goal is to make academic research faster, more efficient, and more engaging by enabling seamless collaboration across disciplines and geographical boundaries. [I] With backgrounds in AI, computer science, and law, we understand these challenges firsthand and are uniquely positioned to solve them. [W] We believe Paper AI will be the go-to platform for the next generation of scholars, [I] and with YC's support, we can take it to the next level.
Vision Statement:
To revolutionize academic research by becoming the world's leading open-source platform that makes collaboration seamless, research enjoyable, and knowledge accessible to all, transcending geographical and disciplinary boundaries.
Mission Statement:
Our mission is to empower researchers, scholars, and learners by providing an AI-powered collaborative platform that enhances research efficiency, simplifies complex academic content, and fosters a global ecosystem of shared learning and innovation.