At first, Vivlio was a side project from Decitre, a bookstore chain from the Lyon area. Vivlio was incorporated in 2011, just a year after Kobo released its first e-book reader. And it proves that you can compete with tech giants with a team of 35 as long as you have a distinct strategy with different goals. While Amazon’s Kindle is the clear leader and Rakuten’s Kobo the obvious challenger, Vivlio has been building an open European alternative to these two tech giants. For the past decade, three companies have been building full-fledged e-book ecosystems with devices, apps and digital bookstores all working perfectly together - Amazon, Rakuten and a tiny company called Vivlio.
