The Nigeria Pan-African digital company -Jiji – mobilized US $21 million in Series C and C-1 financing from six investors. The investor group was led by Knuru Capital co-founded by Ukrainian entrepreneur Valdmir Mnogoletny. Jiji has an East to West presence in Africa and that includes Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. Its platform is used by traders and realtors to transact their business deals electroncially. The company boasts that it acts as a combination of eBay and Craigslist for Africa, being the only platform that caters to the different digital payments of its users. The company says that has has two million listings on its Africa platforms and hit eight million unique monthly users in 2018.
Jiji in April this year acquired the assets of Naspers’ owned online marketplace OLX in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. It is mainly known for facilitating transactions in vehicle sales, real estate and electronics items including mobile phones. The company’s total capital raised from various sources adds to US$ 50 million since its inception in 2014 to till date. The latest funding will be used for increasing the overall number of buyers, sellers and transactions on its site and would endeavor to beef up its users across Africa. It is also planning to increase the trade verticals by bringing more domains other than real estate, car sales and electronic products.
With the scaling down of operations of Jumia-its arch competitor in the digital African market and in e-commerce platform, many feel that Jiji may have a large market to capture and consolidate
