KOMILIBRO, winner of SEUA Spain in Creative category

Country: Spain

Category: Creative

Name: Komilibro

Project Aim: Find your next reading according to what you want to feel

What is Komilibro?

Komilibro is a book searcher in mobile application that allows you to find your next reading according to what you want to feel and what your specific literary interests.

Why is Komilibro necessary?

After asking for readers’ opinion, we realised that books were not usually recommended according to the traditional classification of genre (fiction, romantic novel, etc.), rather they were usually recommended for the feelings they triggered on readers: “I was hooked”, “hilarious”, “it’s food for thought”, “it’s a page-turner”.

We then understood that the book industry keeps a traditional classification that is not helpful for readers to find their next reading in wide variety of books. Therefore, we thought that a modern and different book browser was necessary, one that allows to find readings with a novel and attractive filtering experience.

Besides, Javier Calvo Labat, the leader of the project and one of the co-founders, is a literature teacher at a high school and Komilibro is his personal initiative to encourage reading among students. The main objective is to provide readers, especially the younger ones, with a modern and fresh tool that could give them the opportunity to find their perfect book and to interact with other readers with similar preferences.

Where are we?

After a year and a half of development and several months in front of the public we are very happy with the welcome that has had the initiative. The mobile version on Android carries more than 10,000 downloads and more than 3,000 active users, is ready in English and soon we will launch in more languages. On the other hand, we successfully completed a € 5500 Crowdfunding initiative that has allowed us to begin the development of Komilibro for IOS-Apple devices. In addition, we have joined the team to Javier Celaya, one of the most relevant literary agents in the Spanish book industry, a true reference and guru of the book industry in Spain and Latin America. In 2016 we received the first prize of 25 projects in the Cultural Industries Summit, program of acceleration of cultural and technological projects celebrated in Valencia.

What does Europe and the Startup Europe Awards mean?

Europe is our natural way of growth since, after starting with the Spanish experience, we have started development in English and want to open ourselves to a more international scenario. Fundamentally, we want to revolutionize the way books are found, searched and thought, and that change, in order to be truly relevant, must be global and plurinational. We must take the world of books to the twenty-first century. For that, Spain is the first step and Europe is the way.

“Komilibro’s search and algorithm system is easily replicable in other languages and markets and an international repercussion program such as the Startup Europe Awards would enable us to successfully carry out this company” Javier Calvo, CEO Komilibro.