Our story
We spent three months on a literature review.
Then we built Litrevu.
80 hours of reading. 40 hours of synthesizing. Weeks of formatting citations. The write-up was taking longer than the research itself. We decided that was a problem worth solving.
How Litrevu started
The idea came to us in a cafe in London. One of our team was halfway through a masters dissertation, drowning in 60 reference papers across four screens, a spreadsheet tracking which source said what, and a growing feeling that this couldn't be the best use of a researcher's time.
The research itself was exciting. The write-up was not. And every researcher we talked to said the same thing: the literature review is where projects go to die. Students abandon theses. Deadlines slip. Papers never get submitted. Not because the research is bad, but because the writing process is broken.
So we started building. Not another ChatGPT wrapper that hallucinates citations. Not a paraphrasing tool. Something actually different: a RAG-based system that reads your uploaded papers, understands the connections between them, and produces a properly cited first draft that you then review, revise, and make your own.
What makes Litrevu different
There are plenty of AI writing tools. Here's why we built another one.
Your sources only
Every citation comes from a paper you uploaded. Nothing hallucinated. Nothing fabricated. Trace every claim back to the original PDF.
You stay in control
You set the topic, research question, and word count for every section. You decide what gets included. The AI drafts; you direct.
A draft, not a final paper
We give you a starting point. You review it, revise it, add your own analysis, and submit work that is actually yours.
Three steps from PDFs to cited draft
- 1
Upload your reference papers
Drag and drop the PDFs you want cited. Litrevu reads your papers, not the internet, so every reference is grounded in your sources.
- 2
Tell us about your research
Enter your topic, research question, and preferred word count. You guide every section.
- 3
Get a cited first draft
Litrevu generates each section with proper citations in APA, IEEE, Harvard, or your preferred style. Review, revise, download.
The team behind Litrevu
A small, focused team of researchers and engineers. We use Litrevu on our own work. We built what we needed, and now we're sharing it.
Sam de Bruyn
Founder & Lead Engineer
Jess de Bruyn
Co-founder & Design
“AI should save researchers time, not replace their thinking. Every feature we ship gets measured by one question: does this get someone back to their actual research faster?”
Sam de Bruyn, Founder
Start with 800 words free
No credit card. Not a subscription. Upload your papers, generate your Introduction, and see for yourself.