ASX-listed FDV has signed an agreement to acquire Fincaraíz (Colombia), Avito (Morocco) and Tayara (Tunisia) from Adevinta

Malaysia-based Frontier Digital Ventures (FDV), which operates property and automotive marketplaces in emerging markets globally, has raised US$67 million via share placement.

The money will be used to fund the acquisition of three companies from Norwegian online classifieds major Adevinta ASA. The ASX-listed FDV has entered into agreements to acquire 100 per cent interests in Adevinta units Fincaraíz (a real-estate marketplace in Colombia), and Avito and Tayara (general classifieds portals in Morocco and Tunisia, respectively).

Following the new acquisitions, FDV’s portfolio will consist of interests in 15 online marketplace businesses active in 20 markets across Latin America, Africa and Developing Asia.

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FDV was founded in 2014 by Patrick Grove and Shaun Di Gregorio after they had partnered together to build iProperty Group. Grove was co-founder/chairman and Di Gregorio was Group CEO.

The Kuala Lumpur-headquartered FDV is focused online marketplaces with a particular focus on property and automotive verticals and general marketplace websites.

Since its IPO in August 2016, FDV saw its valuation increase from ~US$36 million to over ~US$360 million, an increase of ~10x.

“We learnt how to build iProperty in Malaysia and how big a property marketplace could be if you did certain things correctly. We also realised that great entrepreneurs in emerging markets neither had access to capital and mentorship nor the case studies we had. After leaving iProperty, we designed FDV to provide both financing and mentorship to these great local entrepreneurs,” said Co-founder Grove.

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Di Gregorio (CEO) aims to leverage the experience building iProperty into the leading property platform in Southeast Asia and replicate it in emerging markets around the world.

“It has been great to build a global business from Malaysia, with primarily Malaysian leadership. In many instances, we were one of the first internet investors in some of these markets, such as Pakistan and Myanmar. These latest acquisitions see FDV evolve into becoming a leading operator ofemerging market marketplaces,” said Gregorio.

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Image Credit: FDV

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