Jiji, the Pan-African digital classifieds company, seems to be wrapping up this year big time for its online classified business. The Nigeria based venture, co-founded by Ukrainian entrepreneur Vladimir Mnogoletniy has just secured $21 million in Series C and C-1 financing from six investors, led by Knuru Capital to further grow its business.
“We are the largest marketplace in Africa where people can sell pretty much anything…We are like a combination of eBay and Craigslist for Africa,” Jiji’s co-founder Vladimir Mnogoletniy said in an interview.
Here Is The Deal
- On the list of Jiji’s investors are the Saudi-based VC Knuru Capital, among six other investors.
- With this latest round of funding, the Jiji’s total capital raised from 2014 to 2019 comes to $50 million.
- Jiji is planning to use the latest investment toward initiatives to increase the overall number of buyers, sellers and transactions on its site.
- The company also hopes to upgrade the platform to create more listings and faster matching in the area of real-estate, according to Mnogoletniy.
- For the moment, Jiji doesn’t have plans for country expansion or company purchases. “Maybe at some point we will consider more acquisitions, but for the time being we’d like to focus on those five markets,” Mnogoletniy said — referring to Jiji’s existing African country presence.
Why The Investors Invested
Although Knuru Capital, the lead investor is new to the VC landscape, the Fund this year led a $2.3 million Series C investment in the Dubai-based startup Luxury Closet, one of the first investments.
‘‘Our purpose is to help fund the growth of the world’s most promising digital disruptors,” said Alain Dib, CEO of Knuru Capital.
“We back companies with the clear potential to become true global players and [with Jiji] selling globally perfectly matching this ambition,” adds Bassim Haidar, Chairman of Knuru Capital.
A Look At What Jiji Does
Buyers and sellers on Jiji, use the platform to transact purchases from real estate to car sales.
The classifieds site, so far, has two million listings on its Africa platforms and hit eight million unique monthly users in 2018, per company stats.
Jiji sees an addressable market of 400 million people across its operating countries, according to Mnogoletniy. The venture bought up one of its competitors in April this year, when it acquired the assets of Naspers owned online marketplace OLX in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Jiji’s top three categories for revenues and listings (in order) are vehicle sales, real estate, and electronics sales (namely mobile phones).
The Nigeria based venture, co-founded by Ukrainian entrepreneur Vladimir Mnogoletniy, has an East to West presence that includes Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya.
With the large consumer base and volume of transactional activity on its platform, Jiji could layer on services, such as finance and payments.
“We’ve had a lot of discussions about adding segments other than our main business. We decided that for the next three to five years, we should be laser focused on our core business — to be the largest marketplace in Africa for buying and selling to over 400 million people,” Mnogoletniy said.
The company faces an improving commercial environment for its goals, with Africa registering some of the fastest growth in the world for smartphone adoption and internet penetration.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world