African Tech Giant Jiji Acquires Bangladesh's Top Marketplace

A tech company from Lagos is proving that African innovation can compete and win on the global stage.

Jiji, Nigeria's largest online classifieds platform, has acquired Bikroy, the biggest marketplace in Bangladesh. The purchase comes just over a year after Jiji entered the South Asian country as a direct competitor, marking the first time an African tech company has successfully expanded and consolidated in Asia.

CEO Anton Volianskyi says the strategy is deliberate. Jiji enters new markets, builds real competitive pressure, then evaluates whether buying the leader makes more sense than fighting for years. "Within months, the dynamics had shifted significantly, and consolidation became the most efficient path forward," he explained.

The approach has worked before. In 2019, Jiji acquired OLX Africa's operations across five countries, instantly reaching over eight million monthly users. Three years later, it bought Ghana's Tonaton from the same Swedish company that owned Bikroy.

Now Jiji serves over 90 million people annually across Africa and Asia, processing $70 billion in transactions. The platform connects buyers and sellers of cars, homes, electronics, and everything in between.

Bikroy will keep its name and brand, which Volianskyi calls "central to the investment thesis." The Bangladeshi platform has been downloaded over 10 million times since 2012 and serves 400,000 monthly buyers in a country of 175 million people.

The Ripple Effect

This deal represents more than one company's growth. It signals a turning point for African tech companies, which have long been viewed as regional players rather than global competitors. Jiji's success shows that innovations built to solve challenges in African markets can translate effectively to other developing economies.

The acquisition also creates opportunities for knowledge sharing between two rapidly growing digital economies. Bangladesh and Nigeria both have young populations embracing mobile commerce, and lessons learned in Lagos can now inform strategies in Dhaka.

For the hundreds of thousands of sellers using both platforms, consolidation means better technology, stronger customer support, and access to the operational expertise Jiji has built over years of scaling across diverse markets.

The African tech company that once focused purely on continental expansion is now proving it can play on the world stage and win.