Nigerian startup Jiji buys Bangladesh’s biggest classifieds platform in rare African tech expansion into Asia

Jiji has acquired Bikroy, Bangladesh’s largest online classifieds marketplace, in a deal that marks one of the clearest signs yet that African tech companies are beginning to expand aggressively beyond the continent.

• Nigerian-founded classifieds platform Jiji has acquired Bangladesh’s largest online marketplace, Bikroy.
• The deal marks one of the rare cases of an African tech company buying a major Asian digital platform.
• Jiji is extending a strategy it used across Africa: enter markets, challenge incumbents, then acquire them.
• The acquisition highlights rising competition across emerging markets as African, Chinese and regional tech firms race for online commerce dominance.

The acquisition is Jiji’s first outside Africa and comes just over a year after the Nigerian-founded company entered Bangladesh as a direct competitor to Bikroy.

Jiji Chief Executive Officer Anton Volianskyi declined to disclose the value of the transaction but told TechCabal it was funded through internal resources and shareholder support.

The deal is significant because African startups have historically focused on expanding within the continent rather than acquiring established platforms overseas.

Jiji’s move into South Asia shows a transition, reflecting how some African technology firms are now attempting to export operating models developed in fast-growing but difficult markets such as Nigeria and Kenya.

Founded in 2014, Jiji has grown into one of Africa’s largest online classifieds platforms, operating across several African countries including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia.

The company says it now serves more than 90 million annual users and processes around $70 billion in annual gross merchandise value across its platforms.

The Bangladesh acquisition also extends a strategy that has defined Jiji’s growth over the past six years: enter a market, compete aggressively against dominant rivals, then consolidate the market through acquisitions.

In 2019, Jiji acquired the African operations of OLX across Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania after years of competition. In 2022, it bought Tonaton, a Ghanaian classifieds platform owned by Sweden-based Saltside Technologies.

Bikroy was also owned by Saltside, making it the second Saltside platform Jiji has acquired in four years.

“This is a deliberate strategy,” Volianskyi said. “In each case, the sequence is the same: enter organically to validate the opportunity, build a competitive position on the ground, and then evaluate whether organic scaling or consolidation gets us to category leadership faster.”

Jiji launched in Bangladesh in March 2025, targeting a market with strong similarities to several African economies where it already operates: a large young population, growing internet penetration, increasing smartphone usage and rising online commerce adoption.

Bangladesh has more than 130 million internet users and one of South Asia’s fastest-growing digital commerce sectors. Industry estimates project the country’s e-commerce market could exceed $12 billion within the next few years.

The market is also becoming increasingly competitive.

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Jiji will now compete more directly with Daraz, the Alibaba-backed e-commerce giant operating across South Asia.

The company also faces broader pressure from fast-growing Chinese platforms such as Temu, which has expanded aggressively into emerging markets including parts of Africa.

For Jiji, Bangladesh offers something increasingly difficult to find within Africa: a large digital marketplace with room for rapid scale and consolidation.

The company said Bikroy will continue operating under its existing brand rather than being rebranded as Jiji.

“That kind of brand equity and category leadership takes more than a decade to build,” Volianskyi said.

Bikroy, founded in 2012, is one of Bangladesh’s best-known online marketplaces, particularly in vehicles, electronics and property listings.

According to figures released by Jiji, the platform has recorded more than 10 million app downloads and attracts roughly three million monthly users.

Jiji plans to migrate Bikroy onto its own technology infrastructure while introducing advertising systems and seller tools already used across its African operations.

The company also plans to increase marketing spending in Bangladesh as it pushes for further growth.

The acquisition reflects a broader shift in global technology markets, where companies from emerging economies are no longer only defending their home markets from international rivals but are increasingly expanding abroad themselves.

For African startups, the transaction could become an important test case of whether business models refined in some of the world’s toughest operating environments can successfully compete beyond the continent.