RAx — Smart Research Assistant

Academic researchers lose thousands of hours to inefficient literature discovery, citation management, and knowledge synthesis. RAx was our attempt to build the research assistant we wished we'd had — an AI-augmented tool that brought intelligence to the research pipeline.

We spent the first six months embedded in university research labs, observing how researchers actually worked. The rituals, the workarounds, the frustrations.

What emerged was a surprisingly consistent pattern: researchers needed help not with finding papers, but with understanding which ones mattered and why. That insight drove every design and product decision for the next two years.

Grew to 8,000+ active researchers across 40+ universities. Achieved a NPS of 67. Processed over 2 million research paper recommendations. The platform was eventually acquired in 2021.