Investor Profile: Cento Ventures — Thesis, Cheque Size & How to Apply

If your Southeast Asia startup has reached product-market fit and is preparing a Series A, Cento Ventures funding deserves a place on your target list. Founded in Singapore in 2011 — originally as Digital Media Partners, renamed in October 2017 — Cento Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm that backs technology companies riding the digital transformation of growth markets, with Southeast Asia as its home turf.

Its pitch to founders is refreshingly blunt: Cento does not do pre-seed or idea-stage. It usually leads Series A rounds and follows into early Series B, but only after a market is proven and the company is ready to scale. For founders past the seed wobble, that makes Cento a rare specialist — a firm built around the graduation from experiment to growth.

Cento Ventures: the investment thesis

The thesis rests on three principles, stated on cento.vc: sectors ready for digital transformation, with technology as the enabler; rounds led by Cento at Series A only once a market is proven; and founders with big ambition — teams building category-leading, asset-light digital companies with plans to scale internationally. The homepage has leaned further into fintech, emphasising business models enhanced by embedded credit, settlements or insurance.

Sectors, stages and cheque size

Sector coverage centres on fintech and embedded finance — payments, lending, credit and insurance — alongside e-commerce, fashion, travel, recruitment and HR, real estate and healthtech. Cento describes itself as active across payments, digital advertising, travel and 'last-mile' marketplaces. Stages are Series A, usually leading the round, through early Series B, always post-product-market fit. Average ticket size is reported at around US$1–4 million (third-party investor-profile data; the firm does not publish its own figure). Fund size is not publicly disclosed: the site confirms three funds but gives no sizes or AUM, so treat old press numbers as historical, not current.

Notable portfolio

Cento's portfolio and exits tell the story of its stage. 2C2P — acquired by Ant Financial in what the firm calls Southeast Asia's biggest VC trade-sale exit of 2022 — sits alongside Coda Payments, FoodRunner (acquired by FoodPanda/Delivery Hero), Kaidee (acquired by OLX Middle East) and iPrice (acquired in April 2023). Other names on the firm's own portfolio page include Jirnexu, Pomelo, Brodo, Doxa and Finfra. Cento led Thai earned-wage-access startup Salary Hero's US$7.6 million Series A in October 2026 — a clear signal the firm is actively deploying.

Programs and perks

Cento runs no accelerator and publishes no startup-credits programme. What it does publish is its half-yearly Southeast Asia Tech Investment research reports — useful reading for founders calibrating the regional funding climate.

How to apply for funding

There is no public application portal and no published pitch email, so do not go looking for one. The real route is direct outreach through the site's contact channels and social profiles — LinkedIn included — ideally with a warm introduction. Cento's own 2017 post 'How do you raise a Series A from Cento Ventures?' confirms it evaluates inbound on market, business model and technology, and its status is 'Actively Seeking New Investments'. Come with proof points: this is not a firm for first-draft ideas.