A Nigerian team, building in Lagos, for the millions of closet sellers who deserve better than Instagram DMs.
In 2024, our founder Akachi tried to buy a vintage Ankara jacket off an Instagram closet. Sent the money, seller went silent, jacket never arrived. ₦30,000 gone. She wasn't surprised — half the people she knew had been scammed trying to buy or sell pre-loved items on Instagram.
The absurd part was how common it was. Millions of Nigerians run closet sales on Instagram and WhatsApp every week. Billions of naira flow through DMs. None of it is protected. None of it is structured. Buyers get scammed. Sellers don't get paid. Everyone just lives with it.
Clinkit is the platform that should have existed years ago.
To turn Nigeria's informal closet economy into a structured, protected, thriving marketplace where every seller can build a real business and every buyer can shop without fear.
We believe the future of fashion in Nigeria is pre-loved. Not because thrift is trending, but because the math works — it's cheaper, it's better for the planet, and most importantly, it recirculates value within our own communities instead of sending it to fast fashion brands abroad.
Every feature we build starts with this question: does this help sellers get paid, safely, every single time? If the answer is no, we don't build it.
If something goes wrong with an order, the buyer shouldn't be the one absorbing the loss. That's what the protection fee is for. We eat the bad actors so our users don't have to.
Every decision is made for the Lagos user first. Bandwidth, payment methods, logistics partners, language, currency formatting, naming conventions — all designed for how things actually work here, not how they work in San Francisco.
We will never charge sellers to list or sell. Our business model is aligned with seller success — we make more money when sellers make more money, not when we extract a cut.
Clinkit is led by Akachi Njoku, who founded the company after losing ₦30,000 to an Instagram scam. We're a small, scrappy team based in Lagos, building fast and shipping often. We're hiring — if you want to work on one of the most interesting consumer products in Africa, check out our openings.
We're hiring across engineering, design, operations, and trust & safety. If you want to work on one of the most meaningful consumer products in Africa, we'd love to meet you.