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JustBooks.de GmbH
9/1999 - 10/2001
JustBooks was founded in September 1999 in Düsseldorf, Germany by Hannes Blum, Dr. Malte Brettel, Christian Langer, Florian Heinemann and Dr. Boris Wertz.
As students, the company founders became aware that text books they required were often out-of-print and so unavailable. An internet platform would provide a solution to this problem.
From this initial concept until its realization only a few short months passed. JustBooks.de began business in October 1999 to coincide with the Frankfurt Book Convention. At the beginning, the young entrepreneurs were financed by Business Angels, themselves an internet firm. From January 2000, the up-and-coming company was supported by the venture capitalist Hubert Burda Media. At the end of June 2000, the English platform, www.justbooks.co.uk, was launched. Nine months later (March 2001) JustBooks went on the market in France under www.justbooks.fr.
By October 2001 JustBooks was offering more than 5.3 million titles from over 1000 antiquarian book dealers and employed 15 permanent staff members. | |
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Abebooks (Advanced Book Exchange Inc.)
5/1996 - 10/2001
Abebooks was founded in May 1996 by Rick Pura and Keith Waters in Victoria, Canada.
The founding team possessed not only technical know-how, but also had years of experience in the antiquarian book trade. The idea for abebooks emerged in the light of difficulties antiquarian booksellers had in trying to provide customers with rare books and in trying to exchange information about book inventories with other book dealers.
Not long after the company's formation, book dealers from all over North America
were eagerly using the Abebooks network to sell their books. Since then, the company
has grown continuously. Through co-operations with Barnes & Noble/USA (1998),
Akaikutsu/(JAP (6/2000), Chapitre/FR (10/2000), Biblioquest/AUS (10/2000) and
the auction giant eBay/US (half.com/2001) during the last 4 years, abebooks was
able to expand and maintain its leading market position.
By October 2001 there were approximately 80 permanent staff members working for Advanced Book Exchange Inc., one of the most successful Canadian internet firms. Abebooks was used by more than 8800 independent book dealers, selling 30 million titles worldwide. | |
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