Litmaps
Litmaps is a Wellington, New Zealand-based SaaS platform that uses citation-network visualization to help 350,000+ academic researchers, students, and professionals discover, map, and monitor scientific literature across 270+ million papers, monetized via freemium Pro, Team, and Enterprise subscriptions.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2021
- HeadquartersWellington, New Zealand
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B and B2C
- OfferingSoftware
What Litmaps does
Litmaps is a Wellington, New Zealand-based SaaS company that builds a research-discovery and literature-review platform used by 350,000+ researchers, students, and professionals across 150 countries. The product visualizes the academic literature as an interactive citation network — users begin with a "seed" paper and the platform expands outward through citations and references to surface related work, configurable alerts monitor the literature for new publications, and Teams workspaces allow collaborative literature review with Editor/Viewer roles. The underlying system aggregates metadata from open academic sources (Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, ORCID, LibKey) into a corpus of 270+ million papers and applies network-science algorithms to power citation-based discovery rather than purely keyword-based search; the front end is built with React and styled-components and runs on Azure and AWS cloud infrastructure with GDPR and CCPA compliance.
Litmaps monetizes via a tiered, primarily product-led model: a free tier (limited inputs, up to 2 Litmaps, 100 articles per map) drives top-of-funnel acquisition; Litmaps Pro at USD $10/month or $120/year unlocks unlimited searches and maps, advanced filters, configurable alerts, and Zotero bidirectional sync; Litmaps Teams adds shared workspaces for research groups and classrooms; and an Enterprise tier is sold via direct sales to institutions. A 75% educational discount and free classroom teaching resources anchor adoption in academia. The company raised a NZ$1M seed round in August 2021 led by Icehouse Ventures (with Quidnet Ventures, AngelHQ, Exponential Founders Fund, K1W1) supplemented by NZ government Callaghan Innovation R&D grants, and in May 2025 acquired competitor Research Rabbit while closing an additional ~$1M funding round.
Litmaps firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Litmaps
- Legal name
- Litmap Limited
- Website
- https://litmaps.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2021
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- Litmaps is a Wellington, New Zealand-based SaaS platform that uses citation-network visualization to help 350,000+ academic researchers, students, and professionals discover, map, and monitor scientific literature across 270+ million papers, monetized via freemium Pro, Team, and Enterprise subscriptions.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Litmaps industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Academic Research Software
- NAICS
- Web Search Portals and All Other Information Services (519290), Libraries and Archives (51921)
- SIC
- Periodicals: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2721), Books: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2731)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Academic & Scholarly Journals Publishing (Peer-Reviewed) (MPAJABAC)
- akta.pro secondary industry
- Conference Proceedings & Research Reports Publishing (EDAGAFAL)
Keywords
Where Litmaps is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Wellington
- HQ country
- New Zealand
- HQ region
- Oceania
Offices2 records
Markets served
Litmaps business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B and B2C
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- Subscription - Free Tier: Free tier provides basic search functionality with limited inputs and article counts. Serves as acquisition layer for conversion to paid tiers.
- Subscription - Pro: Monthly or annual subscription at $10/month ($120/year). Provides unlimited searches, maps, advanced filters, and configurable literature alerts. 75% educational discount available.
- Subscription - Team: Seat-based team subscription with unlimited members. All team members get Litmaps Pro access plus collaborative workspace features.
- Enterprise / Institutional Licensing: Custom enterprise licensing for institutions. Contact sales for pricing. Includes institution-wide access and potentially custom integrations.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Monthly | Free - Basic literature discovery for individuals |
| Subscription | Monthly | Pro - Full access for individual researchers |
| Subscription | Monthly | Team - Collaboration for research groups |
| Subscription | Multi-year contract | Enterprise - Institution-wide licensing |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels3 records
Marketing channels9 records
Litmaps product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Litmaps provides a cloud-based literature review platform that helps researchers, students, and professionals discover, visualize, share, and monitor academic papers. The platform uses citation network analysis rather than keyword search to surface relevant papers, enabling users to build interactive Seed Maps showing how articles connect by citations. It is offered as a freemium SaaS product with paid Pro and Teams tiers and quote-based Enterprise licensing for institutions.
Product overview
Litmaps is a unified literature review platform built around the core concept of citation mapping and network visualization. The core product offers four main capabilities: Discover (search 270+ million academic papers), Visualize (create interactive citation maps), Share (collaborate with colleagues), and Monitor (receive alerts for new publications). The platform operates on a tiered model: a free tier with basic limitations, Litmaps Pro as the premium individual subscription unlocking advanced search and Zotero sync, and Litmaps Teams as a collaborative extension providing shared workspaces and team-wide Pro access. The platform is used by 350,000+ researchers across 150 countries.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Litmaps Pro: Premium subscription tier offering unlimited searches, maps, advanced features, and Zotero synchronization.
- Litmaps Teams
Products and services
- Litmaps (Core Platform) A literature review assistant platform that uses data visualization and network science to help researchers, students, and professionals discover, visualize, share, and monitor academic papers across a 270+ million article database. Users create interactive citation maps (Litmaps/Seed Maps) showing how articles connect via citations and references.
- Litmaps Free Free tier of Litmaps providing basic search functionality with up to 20 inputs, a maximum of 2 Litmaps, and 100 articles per map. No collaboration features included. Designed for individual researchers and students to discover and evaluate the platform.
- Litmaps Pro Premium individual subscription tier of Litmaps offering unlimited searches, unlimited Litmaps, advanced search filters, custom filters, configurable literature alerts, and bidirectional Zotero sync. Priced at $10/month or $120/year, with a 75% educational discount available to verified academic users.
- Litmaps Teams Collaborative workspace tier of Litmaps that enables research groups, labs, and classrooms to share literature, develop research, and manage projects together. Provides team-wide access to Litmaps Pro features and shared workspaces with role-based permissions (Admin/Member, Editor/Viewer). Sold per seat with quote-based pricing.
Quantifiable outcome
- Used by researchers, students and professionals across 150 countries
- +1 more outcomes
Companies that use Litmaps
Customer profileNamed customers12 records
Segments5 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Litmaps technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration7 records
Feature6 records
Litmaps partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
One partnership is on record.
- ZoterocoreZotero Sync feature enables two-way synchronization between Litmaps Tags and Zotero Collections. Changes in either platform automatically reflect in the other. A Litmaps Pro feature enabling seamless reference management workflow.
Scale indicators4 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Litmaps competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Connected Papers: Connected Papers builds an interactive graph of academic papers based on similarity, letting researchers visualize a field's structure from a single seed paper — directly comparable to Litmaps' Seed Map / Litmap visualization approach.
- Inciteful: Inciteful is a citation-network analysis tool for academic literature that visualizes papers, authors, and journals as networks — overlapping directly with Litmaps' core discovery and visualization value proposition.
- Scite: Scite analyzes how scientific papers cite each other by classifying citations as supporting, contrasting, or mentioning, helping researchers evaluate evidence — addressing the same 'literature discovery and evaluation' use case as Litmaps.
- Elicit: Elicit uses large language models to automate literature reviews, find relevant papers, and extract data — a direct competitor to Litmaps in the academic literature-discovery and review workflow.
- Consensus: Consensus is an AI-powered academic search engine that pulls answers directly from peer-reviewed studies, targeting the same researcher persona and literature-review use case as Litmaps.
- Rayyan: Rayyan is a literature-review and systematic-review platform used by researchers and evidence-synthesis teams — overlapping with Litmaps in literature screening and collaborative review workflows.
- Covidence: Covidence is a SaaS platform for systematic literature reviews and evidence synthesis used by academic and healthcare researchers — comparable to Litmaps on the review-workflow side of academic research.
- Scinapse: Scinapse is an academic paper search engine that helps researchers find and filter relevant literature, addressing the same discovery workflow as Litmaps with a different UI paradigm.
Broad incumbents
- Semantic Scholar: Semantic Scholar is a free AI-backed academic search engine from the Allen Institute; it is both a data source for Litmaps and a broad incumbent competing in academic paper discovery and citation graph exploration.
Emerging players
- Scholarcy: Scholarcy uses AI to summarize academic articles into structured flashcards, addressing an adjacent but partially overlapping researcher workflow — helping users triage and digest the literature Litmaps helps them find.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Litmaps social profiles
Digital presenceLitmaps compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance2 records
Litmaps financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Litmaps leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles3 records
Litmaps funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds5 records
Investors6 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Litmaps M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A1 record
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Litmaps
What does Litmaps do?
Litmaps provides a cloud-based literature review platform that helps researchers, students, and professionals discover, visualize, share, and monitor academic papers. The platform uses citation network analysis rather than keyword search to surface relevant papers, enabling users to build interactive Seed Maps showing how articles connect by citations. It is offered as a freemium SaaS product with paid Pro and Teams tiers and quote-based Enterprise licensing for institutions.
Is Litmaps a public or private company?
Litmaps is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Litmaps founded?
Litmaps was founded in 2021. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Litmaps based?
Litmaps is headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand, in the Oceania region.
How does Litmaps make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. Subscription - Free Tier is the primary driver. The others are subscription - Pro, subscription - Team and enterprise / Institutional Licensing.
Who are Litmaps's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Connected Papers, Inciteful, Scite, Elicit, Consensus, Rayyan, Covidence and Scinapse. Semantic Scholar is listed as a broad incumbent. Scholarcy is listed as an emerging player.
Does Litmaps have an API?
No public API is recorded for Litmaps.
What industry is Litmaps in?
Litmaps's product category is Academic Research Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is MPAJABAC, Academic & Scholarly Journals Publishing (Peer-Reviewed), with a secondary code of EDAGAFAL, Conference Proceedings & Research Reports Publishing. Its NAICS code is 519290 and its SIC code is 2721.