About Us
Cento Ventures
A ‘Cento’ is a literary work made up of quotations from other authors or excerpts of other authors’ writings. Our name, Cento Ventures, reflects our view that the firm’s results are composed of the hard work of our portfolio founders and their teams.
Our investment thesis is guided by these three principles:
Tech startups at an early stage, but with proof points
Our investments are usually at Series A, where we lead the round. This helps us establish a solid relationship with the founder, and to influence company strategy. We only invest once a company can show that a market exists for its product and that it is ready to use extra capital to scale.
Founders with great ambition
We look for founders who want to build large digital companies that are leaders in their category. In a fragmented region, such as Southeast Asia, operating across multiple countries is often essential. Our preference is for business models that are light on physical assets and where the founders have ambitious plans to scale internationally.
Sectors ready for digital transformation
There is a great opportunity for technology to solve some of the inefficiencies present in emerging markets. However, technology alone does not digitalise industries. Most of our investments apply innovative business models to large industry sectors that are set in their ways, using technology as an enabler.
Testimonials
Investors in the company had to fulfil three basic criteria - understand the business, trust in the team running it, and be able to help the company grow. It is very easy to judge whether a potential investor meets these criteria based on the questions they ask about the business and the terms they request
Siew Yuen Tuck, Jirnexu
Cento was my first institutional investor. They were forgiving and helpful throughout Series A. Cento has strong understanding and knowledge about Southeast Asia and helps us in matters important to us such as Singapore's ecosystem, financing, legal machinery etc.
Aung Kyaw Moe, 2C2P
Cento has been a strong partner to Ctrl/Shift’s leadership team. They are an entrepreneur-friendly VC team who is able to help a leadership team break down complex strategic and operating issues into smaller 'bite-size' tactics that can be addressed in a straightforward manner. Their understanding of the execution elements in the digital landscape - including ad-tech, big data, payments, etc. - is superb
Reza Behnam, Ctrl/Shift
