Cargoplug, a Nigerian logistics company, is expanding to the UK by launching its first self-managed hub in the UK.
The company said in a statement seen by Techpoint Africa that the hub will streamline shipping between the UK and Nigeria.
Established in 2013 by Kikelomo Fola-Ogunniya and Ujama Akpata, Cargoplug, formerly known as Jand2Gidi, has completed over one million deliveries, catering to both individual and business clients.
Its expansion into the UK comes as trade between the two nations continues to grow, with bilateral trade volumes surpassing £7.5 billion ($8.4 million) in recent years.
“After over a decade of growth through valued partnerships, we’re thrilled to launch our first self-run UK hub,” said Fola-Ogunniya. “This move underscores our commitment to being the go-to logistics firm for goods movement between the UK and Nigeria.”
The UK has become an increasingly important trade partner for Nigeria, with exports and imports between the two countries experiencing significant growth.
According to the UK’s Department for Business and Trade, total trade in goods and services between the UK and Nigeria reached £6.9 billion ($7.7 billion) in 2023 and increased to £7 billion in 2024.
The company, which just entered Techstars in 2024, has been bootstrapped for 12 years; its younger African competitors have raised significant funding.
Ghana-based Jetstream Africa, founded in 2018, has raised $16 million in total, while OnePort 365, a Nigerian digital freight forwarding company established in 2019, has raised $5 million in seed funding to streamline logistics operations.
Unlike Jetstream Africa and OnePort 365, which primarily focus on digitising and streamlining B2B freight forwarding and supply chain logistics for large-scale importers and exporters across Africa, Cargoplug has historically focused on cross-border delivery for consumers and SMEs, particularly along the UK-Nigeria corridor.
While Jetstream and OnePort offer logistics solutions from customs clearance to port logistics, targeting enterprise users and aggregating cargo for economies of scale, Cargoplug has carved a niche around diaspora-driven parcel delivery and now serves B2B and B2B2C clients through API integrations.
To compete at the continental level, Cargoplug may need to have bigger enterprise offerings and a regional footprint beyond its current focus.
However, its self-managed UK hub offers a strategic competitive advantage, enabling it to control operations, cut costs, and deepen customer trust in one of Africa’s busiest trade corridors.
