Jiji has acquired Bikroy, bringing Bangladesh’s largest online listings platform under the control of the Lagos-based operator in a deal that highlights a new phase of consolidation in the country’s digital commerce sector.
Jiji, founded in 2014 by Ukrainian entrepreneurs Anton Volianskyi and Volodymyr Mnoholetnyi, runs classifieds marketplaces across nine African countries, where it connects buyers and sellers in high-velocity categories such as vehicles, property, electronics and services.
The company has grown through a hybrid model of organic entry followed by acquisitions that strengthen category leadership in individual markets.
Bikroy, established in 2012, has long dominated Bangladesh’s general classifieds space, offering listings across more than 50 categories including real estate, automobiles, electronics and jobs.
The platform has built scale in transactional segments, reporting more than three million monthly active users and a strong footprint in used goods and property listings.
The acquisition marks Jiji’s first move outside Africa and comes just over a year after it entered Bangladesh in March 2025 through its local platform jiji-bd.com, where it competed directly with Bikroy in the same marketplace categories.
The companies did not disclose financial details.
In a statement, Jiji co-founder Anton Volianskyi said Bangladesh aligns with the company’s expansion criteria, citing a large young population, rising smartphone penetration and growing digital commerce activity.
He said the transaction was funded through internal resources and shareholder backing.
Jiji’s expansion model typically follows a fixed sequence: enter a market independently to validate demand and test competitiveness, build operational scale, then pursue consolidation where acquisition shortens the path to leadership.
The company has previously executed this strategy in Africa, including acquisitions of OLX Africa assets in 2019 and Ghana-based Tonaton in 2022.
Under the new structure, Bikroy will retain its brand identity while gradually integrating Jiji’s backend infrastructure, including search ranking systems, ad delivery tools and monetisation architecture used across its African operations.
A key change will be the shift from a flat listing-fee model to a performance-driven system in which sellers pay to boost visibility based on engagement metrics.
Jiji also plans to increase marketing investment to expand traffic and deepen marketplace liquidity.
Analysts said the deal could reshape Bangladesh’s fragmented classifieds ecosystem, which has evolved through multiple platforms over the past two decades but has struggled to establish durable profitability amid weak trust mechanisms and increasing reliance on social-media-based selling channels.
