Private company

Alibris

Online bookstore

Alibris is an online store that sells new books, used books, out-of-print books, rare books, and other media through an online network of independent booksellers.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 20, 2026.

Overview

1997Founded1

Alibris is an online store that sells new books, used books, out-of-print books, rare books, and other media through an online network of independent booksellers.2

The story

Martin Manley founded Alibris in 1997 with the team behind early online book marketplace Interloc, which Alibris purchased. Interloc was founded by book seller Richard Weatherford, programmer Tom Sawyer and computer tech Brad Councilman in 1994.

Interloc was one of the earliest successful efforts to centralize used book data online. It remained a private network until 1996, when the company launched its website built in Thunderstone Texis by Senior Engineer Michael Warchut. The Alibris website was launched on October 23, 1998 at 14:30PM EST also built by Michael Warchut.

Alibris was incorporated in 1998.

Alibris acquired Bibliocity in October 1999.

The company was backed by venture capital until 2006, when it was purchased by Oak Hill Capital Partners, a private equity firm. In February 2010, Oak Hill Capital Partners bought Monsoon and merged it with Alibris with Monsoon Commerce owning Alibris. As of February 2017, Alibris was owned by AM Holding Inc. (formerly Monsoon Commerce Inc.) In 2017 Alibris Holding sold off Monsoon Commerce of Portland and Stonegde Technologies of Collegeville, PA, and Alibris was subsequently sold in June 2017 to a private investor.

The company remains privately owned.

From Wikipedia’s article on Alibris, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Products and brands

  • used book

Listed on Wikidata.1

Subsidiaries and ownership

Owners

From Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. 1997Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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