Jiji Ghana acquires Tonaton.com

Africa’s most popular classified ads website, Jiji, has acquired Tonaton.com, its main competitor in Ghana.

History Of Acquisitions

A. OLX

In 2019, Jiji had originally acquired one of the largest marketplaces for classifieds, their main competitor on the African market, OLX, and their businesses in Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, and Tanzania. The transaction was supported by one of Jiji’s principal investors, Digital Spring Ventures.
Their partnership was pivotal to Jiji’s future business model and success, t paved the way for building the continent’s largest Africa-based classified business serving a market with a combined population of over 300 million in some of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

B. Cars45

In 2021, the company is announcing the acquisition of transactional car marketplace Cars45 for an undisclosed amount. In 2017, Cars45 raised $5 million from Frontier Car Group (FGC), the Berlin-based company that builds used-car marketplaces focusing on emerging markets.

Two years later, FGC received $400 million from OLX Group (a division of Proses, the Netherlands-based separate tech holdings of South African tech giant Naspers). The investment valued FGC at $700 million, with OLX Group taking a controlling stake. In 2020, OLX Group, via its OLX Autos brand, acquired Cars45 from FGC.

C. Tonaton.com

In 2022, Jiji Ghana has acquired Tonaton Ghana. Jiji and Tonaton users will now have access to a larger network of buyers and sellers following the acquisition deal.

Jiji already holds leadership positions in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya following its acquisition of OLX in 2019 and Cars45 in 2021. CEO and co-founder Anton Volianskyi clarified that “with OLX and Cars45 under Jiji’s umbrella, we are getting close to becoming a regional leader in classifieds. Our goal is to build a company that gives every user in Africa the opportunity to buy goods cheaper and reduce environmental impact through what is effectively a developing lateral economy built on a safe and productive recirculation of valuable goods.