Paper Chase 📄💨

Ingests an arXiv PDF URL and generates a VC-style investment report.

(Summary ➜ Market ➜ Competitors ➜ Startup Concept ➜ Investment Thesis)

Tech Stack

• Framework: Next.js (App Router)
• Language: TypeScript
• Styling: Tailwind CSS
• UI Components: Shadcn UI
• Animations: Framer Motion
• API Runtime: Vercel Edge Functions

External Services

• AI: Google Gemini 2.5 Pro (via OpenAI SDK compatibility layer)
• Market Research: Firecrawl (/deep-research endpoint)
• Competitor Analysis: Apify (Crunchbase Actor: curious_coder/crunchbase-scraper)
• PDF Ingestion: arXiv API + pdf-parse + guMCP

Getting Started

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone <repository-url>
   cd paperchase

2. Install dependencies:

   npm install

3. Set up environment variables: Create a .env.local file in the root directory by copying the example below. Obtain the necessary API keys and tokens:

   # .env.local
   
   # Google AI Studio API Key for Gemini access (https://aistudio.google.com/app/apikey)
   GEMINI_API_KEY=
   
   # Firecrawl API Key (https://firecrawl.dev/)
   FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=
   
   # Apify API Token (https://console.apify.com/account/integrations)
   APIFY_TOKEN=

4. Run the development server:

npm run dev

5. Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

6. Paste an arXiv URL (e.g., https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.10130 or https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.08406.pdf) and click "Chase".

API Endpoint (/api/generate)

• Method: POST
• Body: { "arxivUrl": "<string>" }
• Output: JSON representing the InvestmentReport (see src/lib/types.ts).

TODOs / Future Enhancements

• Implement more robust parsing for Firecrawl markdown output.
• Refine Apify Crunchbase Actor input/output mapping for better competitor data.
• Consider adding a Gemini call to analyze the competitor list from Apify.
• Add more sophisticated loading states (e.g., progress indicators for different steps).
• Improve error handling and user feedback.
• Add unit/integration tests.
• Implement diagram generation using VizCom or similar (original idea).
• Add authentication.
• Deploy to Vercel.