Item 1. Business
Item 1. Business
Company Overview
Research Solutions was incorporated in the State of Nevada on November 2, 2006, and is a publicly traded holding company with five wholly owned subsidiaries as of June 30, 2025: Reprints Desk, Inc., a Delaware corporation, including its wholly owned subsidiary Resolute Innovation, Inc., a Delaware corporation, Scite, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, Reprints Desk Latin America S. de R.L. de C.V., an entity organized under the laws of Mexico, and RESSOL LA, S. DE R.L. DE C.V., an entity organized under the laws of Mexico.
We are a vertical software-as-a-service (“SaaS”) and artificial intelligence (“AI”) company providing software and related services to help research-intensive organizations simplify the research process, save time and money. We offer various software platforms (“Platform” or “Platforms”) that are typically sold to corporate, academic, government and individual researchers as cloud-based SaaS via auto-renewing license agreements. Corporate, academic, and government customers typically sign up under annual or multi-year agreements paid annually in advance. Individual researchers can sign up under an annual or a month-to-month agreement and are typically billed monthly. Our Platforms also facilitate the sale of published scientific, technical, and medical (“STM”) content sold as individual articles (“Transactions”) either stand alone or via one or more of the research Platform solutions we provide. When one or more of the Platform solutions are used to purchase Transactions, customers pay for those transactions through monthly billing or via credit card for individual researchers. In addition, our Platforms facilitate rights and permissions for customers to re-use content, ensuring copyright compliance for research, regulatory and marketing use cases as well as the utilization of content with AI applications and for the training of AI models. Our Platforms enable life science and other research-intensive organizations to simplify their research and development activities through our advanced search (i.e. Discovery Tools), tools to access and buy STM articles required to support their research (i.e. Access), as well as tools that manage that content across the enterprise and on an individual basis (i.e. Manage). The Platforms also include advanced AI (“Generative AI”) based assistants to help researchers understand the quality of the articles they are reviewing, speed up the review process, and to more fully understand how various research papers relate to each other. In addition to STM content, the Platforms provide additional context to the research process by including the ability to search and assimilate a variety of other types of data such as Patent, Clinical Trial, Regulatory and Competitive Intelligence data. They also typically deliver a return on investment to the customer by reducing the amount of time it takes a research organization to find, acquire and manage content, in addition to also driving down the ultimate cost per article and overall research costs over time.
Platforms
Our cloud-based SaaS Platforms consist of proprietary software and Internet-based interfaces sold to customers through an annual or monthly subscription fee. Legacy functionality falls into three areas.
Discovery Tools – Our Scite.ai and Resolute.ai solutions facilitate search (discovery) across virtually all STM articles available. These solutions include basic search solutions and advanced search tools. These tools allow for searching and identifying relevant research and then purchasing that research through one of our other solutions. In addition, these tools increasingly enable users to find insights in other datasets adjacent to STM content, such as Clinical Trial, Patent, Life Science & MedTech Regulatory information, Competitor and Technology landscape insights, in addition to searching the customer’s internal datasets. Scite.ai includes full text search capability on most of the world’s STM content providing better search results and citation information as supporting or contrasting evidence. This powers our AI assistant and literature search engine and gives researchers better insights into any topic. The advanced search solutions are sold through a seat, enterprise, or individual license. These Platforms are deployed as a single, multi-tenant system across our entire customer base. Customers securely access the Platforms through online web interfaces and via web service APIs that enable customers to leverage Platform features and functionality from within in-house and third-party software systems. The Platforms can also be configured to satisfy a customer’s individual preferences. We leverage our Platforms’ efficiencies in scalability, stability and development costs to fuel rapid innovation and competitive advantage.
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Access – Our Article Galaxy® (“AG”) and Article Galaxy Scholar (Academic Library version) (“AGS”) solutions allow for research organizations to load their entitlements (subscriptions, discount or token packages, and their existing content library of articles) and AG/AGS manages those entitlements in the background enabling the researchers to focus on acquiring articles they need quickly and efficiently at the lowest possible cost. When used in conjunction with our Discovery Tools Platforms, customers can initiate orders, route orders based on the lowest cost to acquire, obtain spend and usage reporting, automate authentication, and connect seamlessly to in-house and third-party software systems. In addition, Article Galaxy facilitates rights and permissions for various re-use cases, including the utilization in AI applications and training of AI applications, ensuring copyright compliance for our customers.
Manage – Our References solution offers a comprehensive reference management solution with built-in document delivery capabilities specifically designed to meet the collaboration and security needs of research- intensive organizations. This user-friendly Platform enables researchers to seamlessly organize their literature, collaborate with team members, and access a vast collection of scientific content. By integrating organization tools with instant access to millions of scholarly articles, our References solution streamlines the research workflow and enhances productivity for scientific professionals.
AI models are integral to powering the unique insights our platforms provide as well as the user experience customers enjoy. Natural language processing (“NLP”) and AI models are used to enhance metadata, define connections between topics and content items as well as to generate data and metrics employed to enable users to rapidly identify and understand the value of content they need for their research. We also use state of the art AI models, such as Large Language Models to include Generative AI “assistants” in several parts of the research workflow today and will continually add capability as we move forward. Today we employ Generative AI technologies as a basis for our recommendation engine in our Discovery Tools, Access, and Manage Platform solutions. In addition, Generative AI based “assistants” in some of our solutions allow the researcher to ask questions about articles, groups of articles (folders), and more. We also have the capability to provide near full text search on STM content in the Scite.ai solution where the publisher gives us the rights to do so. The ability to not only mine an article’s full text but also show snippets of full text is unique to our Company and allows our Generative AI assistants to provide highly accurate results with a very low incidence of hallucinations as part of a Retrieval Augmented Generation framework focused just on STM content. We plan to release several new Platform solutions to enhance the research workflows described above and add new solutions to support the analysis functions that exist in our typical customer base.
Our Platforms are generally deployed as a single, multi-tenant system across our entire customer base. Customers securely access the Platforms through online web interfaces and via web service APIs that enable customers to leverage Platform features and functionality from within in-house and third-party software systems. Our Platforms can also be configured to satisfy a customer’s individual preferences. We leverage our Platforms efficiencies in scalability, stability and development costs to fuel rapid innovation and to gain a competitive advantage.
Transactions
We provide our researchers with a single source to the universe of published STM content that includes over 200 million existing STM journal articles for instant download, 50 million journal articles for rent, 10 million online book chapters, and 45 million only in print journal articles. In addition, we add between 2 to 4 million newly published STM articles each year. STM content is rented or sold to our customers on a per transaction basis. Researchers and knowledge workers in life science and other research-intensive organizations generally require single copies of published STM journal articles for use in their research activities. These individuals are our primary users and while they typically purchase the articles via one of our Platform solutions, we do have some customers that just order articles from us on behalf of end-users in their organizations.
Core to many of our Platform solutions is providing our customers with ways to find and download digital versions of STM articles that are critical to their research. Customers submit orders for the articles they need which we source and electronically deliver to them generally in under an hour, in most cases in seconds. This service is generally known in the industry as single article delivery or document delivery. We also obtain the necessary permission licenses from the content publisher or other rights holder so that our customer’s use complies with applicable copyright laws and we are expanding these services to include the use of content in AI applications and for the training of AI models. We
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have arrangements with hundreds of content publishers that allow us to distribute their content. The majority of these publishers provide us with electronic access to their content, which allows us to electronically deliver single articles to our customers often in a matter of seconds. While a vast majority of the articles are available in electronic form, the Company also has workflows to deliver older paper-based articles through relationships we have built with libraries around the world.
Competitive Strengths
We believe that we possess the following competitive strengths:
Services and Technology
We have developed proprietary software, a sophisticated information logistics technology backbone, and Internet-based interfaces that allow customers to initiate orders for STM content, manage these transactions, obtain reporting, automate authentication, improve seamless connectivity to in-house and third-party software systems, and maximize the information resources they already own or license, as well as organize workgroups to collaborate around bibliographic information. We are focused on rapidly developing an ecosystem of new interactive app-like components for researchers that will deliver time saving efficiencies in core research workflows and knowledge creation processes. We continually enhance the performance of our existing proprietary software and systems and develop and implement new technologies that expand the available methods of discovering, obtaining and managing content. Through the acquisitions of ResoluteAI and Scite, our services have been enhanced to include AI as part of the research workflow.
Our services are highly configurable to meet customers’ needs and provide a personalized yet turnkey solution that covers the full spectrum of customer requirements; from identifying and locating articles, to facilitating copyright compliance, maximizing information resources already owned, monitoring usage, and automating end-user authentication. Our services alleviate the need for our customers to develop internal systems or contact multiple content publishers in order to obtain the content that is critical to their research.
Experienced Management Team
Our management team has years of extensive experience satisfying customers across the information services and STM publishing and technology industries. In addition, our team has experience growing and scaling SaaS and subscription business models.
Customer Loyalty
The majority of our revenue comes from our loyal base of customers, indicative of our focus on customer satisfaction and quality. In Document Delivery Buyer Surveys conducted by industry research and advisory firm Outsell, Inc., we have ranked first overall and in every category for customer satisfaction (depth and breadth of coverage, fair pricing, and ease of doing business) and loyalty (intention to renew or continue service, and willingness to recommend the service to others). This is reflected by our gross churn rate in the low single digit range, and a net churn rate in the high single digit range, each as a percentage of revenue.
Industry Presence and Established Relationships
We have a well-established presence and a network of contacts with our customers (life science companies, academic institutions, and other research-intensive organizations), STM publishing partners, and others in the information services space. We have existing arrangements with hundreds of content publishers that allow us to distribute their content. Although we do not have exclusive relationships with these content publishers, the aggregate number of in place agreements are essential to our value proposition, market presence, and our ability to satisfy the requirements of our customers.
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Promotion
We employ a segment-focused marketing approach that focuses on traditional buyers such as corporate libraries as well as new types of non-library buyers across a variety of business functions, including those within research and development. In pursuit of growth, we invest in vertical integration and channel relationships to increase the value we provide to customers, extend our promotional reach, and decrease customer acquisition costs. We anticipate growth coming from cross-selling into our existing customer base, penetrating new market verticals, and generating market demand and preference from both existing and new customers. While we place emphasis on the life science market, with a focus on pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device customers, we are also penetrating the following markets: academic, aerospace, automotive, electronics, chemicals and food and agriculture.
Growth Strategy
Organic Growth
We seek to grow our customer base through targeted direct and channel promotions of our Platform to potential customers. This strategy for sales and marketing is supported by inbound marketing driven by educational content, innovative technological systems, competitive pricing and best in class service. We are also positioning our sales force to be able to better serve small and medium sized businesses that we consider to be largely underserved today. We also seek to grow existing customer revenue by year over year increases, and through value-based add-ons.
In addition, we submit proposals to potential customers in response to requests for proposals, or “Request for Proposals” (RFPs). We are continually improving our operations and technology to ensure that they are capable of delivering proposed solutions and supporting future growth.
Product Development
We seek to grow revenue through product differentiation, and the development of new products that are attractive to new and existing customers. Our focus on product development leads us to continually explore options to strengthen and broaden our service offering portfolio.
Acquisitions and Combinations
From time to time, and as opportunities arise, we may explore strategic acquisitions and combinations, including the acquisition of customer lists, that bring revenue, profitability, growth potential, cross-selling opportunities and additional technology, products, services, operations and/or geographic capabilities to our company.
International Expansion
We have expanded internationally through increased sales to companies located abroad, particularly in Europe and Japan. From time to time, and as opportunities arise, we may further expand internationally through partnerships or acquisitions.
Publisher Agreements
We have arrangements with all of the major STM content publishers and most of the smaller STM publishers that allow us to distribute their content, and we regularly advance new business opportunities such as rentals through amendments to existing agreements. In addition, we regularly contact publishers to negotiate additional publisher agreements. A typical publisher agreement would allow us to distribute the publisher’s content according to a negotiated price list, thereby eliminating the need to contact the publisher and obtain the rights for each individual order. The majority of these publishers provide us with electronic access to their content, which allows us to further expedite the delivery of single articles to our customers. In addition, we rely on a small number of content publishers for the majority of our content costs.
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Company Services
We account for revenue in accordance with ASU 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606), (“ASC 606”). The underlying principle of ASC 606 is to recognize revenue to depict the transfer of goods or services to customers at the amount expected to be collected.
Revenues are recognized when control of the promised goods or services are transferred to a customer, in an amount that reflects the consideration that we expect to receive in exchange for those goods or services. We derive our revenues from two sources: annual licenses that allow customers to access and utilize certain premium features of our cloud-based SaaS research intelligence platform (“Platform” or “Platforms”) and the transactional sale of STM content managed, sourced and delivered through the Platform (“Transactions”).
We apply the following five steps in order to determine the appropriate amount of revenue to be recognized as we fulfill our obligations under each of our agreements:
● identify the contract with a customer;
● identify the performance obligations in the contract;
● determine the transaction price;
● allocate the transaction price to performance obligations in the contract; and
● recognize revenue as the performance obligation is satisfied.
Platforms
We charge a subscription fee that allows customers to access and utilize certain premium features of our Platforms. Revenue is recognized ratably over the term of the subscription agreement, which is typically one year, provided all other revenue recognition criteria have been met. Billings or payments received in advance of revenue recognition are recorded as deferred revenue.
Transactions
We charge a transactional service fee for the electronic delivery of single articles, and a corresponding copyright fee for the permitted use of the content. We recognize revenue from single article delivery services upon delivery to the customer provided all other revenue recognition criteria have been met.
Customers and Suppliers
There were no customers that accounted for greater than 10% of our revenue for the years ended June 30, 2025 and 2024.
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Approximately 45% and 44% of our content cost for the years ended June 30, 2025 and 2024, respectively, was derived from our three largest suppliers of content.
Sales and Marketing
To efficiently acquire customers, we rely on marketing in close cooperation with value-based selling to acquire new small, medium and large geographically-dispersed enterprises. The promotional mix of tactics we utilize includes: search engine optimization and digital marketing, educational content, advertising, events, direct response and integrated marketing campaigns, public relations and content publicity, thought leadership programs, channel alliances training, and analyst relations. In addition, we focus on account expansion, upselling add-ons, and customer retention, which, we believe, increases total lifetime customer value and generates referrals for new business.
Competition
The markets in which we compete are highly competitive. The primary methods of competition in our industry are price, service, technology and niche focus. Competition based on price is often successful in the short-term, but can limit the ability of a supplier to provide adequate service levels. Competition based on service and/or technology requires significant investment in systems and that investment requires time to produce results. Niche operators focus on narrow activities, but cannot aggregate sufficient content, technology and services to satisfy broad customer needs. We believe that many customers and potential customers are less price sensitive if the service levels are high and the technology creates efficiency and/or management information that has not been available previously.
Our competition includes:
● Reference Management Applications – We expect to increasingly compete with tools that exist in the marketplace that are used to aid in organizing references, storing personal content assets, and prepare scholarly papers for submission to congresses and journals.
● Piracy – Perhaps, our most serious competitor. Many entities use content for commercial purposes without complying with applicable copyright laws, and paying the required copyright to the content publisher. As information becomes more readily available, the opportunity for piracy increases.
● STM Single Article Delivery Vendors and Content Aggregators – Our primary competitors for global, full-service single article delivery services are Copyright Clearance Center, regional interlibrary loan networks throughout the world such as those owned and operated by OCLC, and numerous national libraries located outside of the United States.
● Customer In-House Services – While single article delivery services and software development are challenging for our customers to provide in-house, many existing and potential customers manage these capabilities internally.
● Publisher In-House Capabilities – Some large publishers have developed in-house capabilities to service the content re-use market, however, many of them neglect other content repurposing opportunities and may not be able to aggregate content from other publishers nor create value added software-based solutions.
Corporate History and Structure
Research Solutions was incorporated in the State of Nevada on November 2, 2006, and in November 2006 entered into a Share Exchange Agreement with Reprints Desk. At the closing of the transaction contemplated by the Share Exchange Agreement, Research Solutions acquired all of the outstanding shares of Reprints Desk from its stockholders
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and issued 8,000,003 shares of common stock to the former stockholders of Reprints Desk. Following completion of the exchange transaction, Reprints Desk became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Research Solutions.
On July 24, 2012, we formed Reprints Desk Latin America to provide operational and administrative support services to Reprints Desk.
On March 4, 2013, we consummated a merger with DYSC Subsidiary Corporation, our wholly-owned subsidiary, pursuant to which we, in connection with such merger, amended our Articles of Incorporation to change our name to Research Solutions, Inc. (formerly Derycz Scientific, Inc.).
On June 9, 2022, we formed ResSol LA to provide operational and administrative support services to Reprints Desk.
On July 28, 2023, we acquired 100% of the outstanding stock of Resolute Innovation, Inc., a Delaware corporation, an advanced search platform that equips organizations with search, discovery and knowledge management tools that are powered by artificial intelligence and neuro-linguistic programming (“NLP”) technologies.
On December 1, 2023, we acquired 100% of the outstanding stock of Scite, Inc. a Delaware corporation, a platform for discovering and evaluating scientific articles via Smart Citations. Smart Citations allow users to see how a publication has been cited by providing the context of the citation and a classification describing whether it allows for supporting or contrasting evidence for the cited claim. The acquisition was completed through the merger of our subsidiary, Research Solutions Acquisition 2, LLC, with Scite, Inc., with our subsidiary surviving the merger and subsequently being renamed Scite, LLC.
Human Capital Resources
As of September 12, 2025, we had 136 full-time employees.